The Cost of Creativity: The Top Twelve Creativity Killers

by Brian G. Daigle

​​Creativity is a fundamental impulse, a deep and residing reflex of our humanity. We were made to create. We are, as much as we are homo sapien (thinking man), also homo faber (making man). That creativity bears out in big ways and in small ways, in ways that create something over several years or just a few seconds. It bears out in how we organize both time and space, how we not just use sticks and stones to build cathedrals and homes but also gestures and gaits to build romance and soulmates. We create as much with material things as we do with immaterial things. And our daily lives are both the soil and the fruit of our creativity. But as with anything else in the human condition, creativity can be stifled. It can erode or be diminished or dwindle in both individuals and groups of individuals. It can be directed to vicious ends. There are, therefore, twelve great creativity killers we should avoid:

12. Uninsipiring environments. Creativity is fostered; it is nurtured. And it is often nurtured by having direct and indirect environments which inspire the artist in us to break forth. This is one reason why many of the architectural and post-modern design fads of the past few decades will only lead to less creativity, less inspiration, not more, in every sector of our lives. Today we are creating built-environments (e.g. schools, churches, office buildings, homes, roadways, libraries, etc.) which are deeply pragmatic, less ornate, less considerate of that all-important word decorum, less concerned with the transcendent, more immediate and thoughtless, more regulated, and less objective in their pursuits. These are built environments that do not point to the great ideas or most inspirational or aspirational aspects of being human. And therefore, we are implanting ourselves and future generations in environments that will diminish and destroy the very fabric, and even much of the innate impulse, we would otherwise have to be creative. If we want to feed the artist in us, and if we want to feed it good things, we must surround ourselves by inspiring environments. Fear begets fear; anxiety begets anxiety. And creativity begets creativity.   

11. Chasing money. Enough human history has passed, and enough financial literacy, economic courses, and philosophy have been written to question whether this ninth creativity killer is even worth taking up a spot on the list, or whether it’s a just a given. We are told that “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,” and we see countless times that a pursuit of financial wealth, to the neglect of greater goods, will always corrupt a person and shipwreck their lives. The “starving artist” is a common-enough epithet. And yet I suspect many starving artists, while they would rather not be “starving,” would rather be staving than not be an artist. The little artist in each of us is the same way. Happiness, as we well know, cannot be gained by wealth, power, or pleasure. It can, however, burst forth, quite unexpectedly sometimes, from a well-created life, a well-built relationship, a well-fabricated community, a well-ordered soul, a well-painted canvas, a well-performed play, a high-quality musical arrangement, and a well-rooted faith in the right transcendent things.     

10. A lack of nature. This plays a bit on number ten above, but a lack of nature will quickly stifle creativity. There are a few important reasons for this. First, the natural world is naturally inspiring for the human psyche. Its most base elements (e.g. light, air, wind, water, sky, sun, color, organic shapes, life-saturation, animals, and plot lines) have inspired generations of artists and generations of people in every industry or field. Second, much of what we create, and enjoy creating with, is in its most original form in nature, not made or curated by man, and so our creative impulses are more inspired to do something when we see “raw material.” That primitive impulse is sparked in nature more than anywhere else. And third, nature is itself a creation, the most complex and competitive creation ever known. We have tried to explore it and still see there is so much more to explore. We have tried to conquer it, and we have failed. We have tried to dissect it and we discover infinite regress. We stand in awe of it as our sister and in need of it as our mother. We stand in gratitude for it as God’s work of art, and it never ceases to bring us to good places, if only we would give her the time of day. Nature matters for our well-being, and being in nature matters for our creative health.  

9. Isolation, especially from old things. The artist in the very act of his creativity may be as solitary as an oyster but if he remains that way he will be as depleted as a Scrooge. And there is indeed no way the oyster can make a pearl without a thousand relationships pouring into it and ready to accept its creation, even without its knowing. One great killer of creativity is the proverbial “echo chamber,” to surround one’s self with such individualist and familiar ideas that creativity becomes the perpetual work of self-manifesting. There is nothing worse than this for honorable and authentic creativity. Paradoxically, there is nothing more unoriginal and less conducive to creativity than the artist who is an island unto himself. Even the island needs the ocean and the sky; even the island is thus defined by a million inches of its coastline, its particular relationship to other landmasses, and the thousands of species that call it home. The self-declared island dries up its own volcanic pipeline which gives and sustains its very existence. If the artist wishes to kill creativity, he only needs to cut himself off from others, especially old things that would prevent him from wedding himself too closely to his own times and thereby, as Chesterton said, quickly make him a widower when his times shift like the tide, as they always do.
  
8. Life noise. Noise is defined as unwanted sound. “Life noise” would be something similar but not directly auditory. Life noise is something like unwanted clutter in our calendars and commitments. It is distractions or sideline worries that prevent the artist in each of us from the needed focus, space, or quiet in order to create. Life noise clutters calendars, clutters thoughts, clutters desks, and divides our energy and resources to where our creative activities have no well from which to draw the much-needed water. If we are going to create, we must simplify our lives, our daily work calendars (at least one day a week), we must be picky about our commitments and friendships, we must not sit in too many meetings, we must not overextend ourselves if we wish to extend our imaginations onto our respective canvases, whatever the medium may be and whatever part of our lives needs our creativity.  

7. Data (or the lie of statistical sticks and carrots). Extrinsic motivation is not only short-lived, it is ultimately a weak motivator, and it is something which chokes creativity’s core. Much of the creative act isn’t immediately fruitful. Any artist knows that creation is a journey, and if we don’t love the journey, with or without the precise artifact or destination we envisioned at the end, we will not love creating, and therefore we will not want to commit our time and energy to doing it again. The vast majority of the truth, goodness, and beauty that comes from creating is experienced only by the one creating. What we all experience, as those who see or participate in or enjoy the actual art, is only the fruit of a complex and deeply personal journey that often times happens behind closed doors, in a kind of self-nested studio, even if what was created is as mundane as an email response. Nothing that really matters in that “studio time” is quantifiable. Indeed, the best things in life are not quantifiable. And therefore, the best things in the creative act cannot be put into data charts, be subject to statistical analyses, or be driven by sticks and carrots.      

6. The pressure of productivity. Contemporary America, with its social media influencers, consumeristic tendencies, speed of information and influence, high marketing environment, and high-tech production, is a difficult place for creativity to thrive. Too often today creativity is coupled with a kind of anxiety for production, an anxiety for social media “likes” and mass production sales. While some pressure is always healthy for great creativity, the pressure of productivity can stifle creativity and drown creative decision-making. Rather, the pressure of productivity should be turned into something like the pressure of giving, the internal drive to gift something to someone, even just one person, even just one’s self. That motivation to give is the deepest relationality the artist can enjoy: I wish to give to another that which at-present is not but will soon be, in the course of my creativity. That kind of motivation, while it may still feel like pressure for the artist, is something more like Homer’s ancient Muse, the very nature of what it means to be in-spired, to have the internal and spiritual impress from within our need to give outside of our self. However, this is very different than the pressure of productivity for production’s sake. If we are going to create, we must have that internal pressure to make, the pressure to create even if no one ever sees or enjoys our creation but me and God. And when productivity or receptivity come, humility remains, when the joy was in the creativity and creation itself and not in the receptivity of the creation.

5. Poor relationship to structure. Creativity requires structure, and yet it also requires freedom. Thankfully, as has been noted by others, true freedom is not the absence of restrictions but the presence of the right restrictions. Freedom is one of the great paradoxes. In a business or corporate environment, we may stifle creativity quickly by one of two extremes: not having enough definition or having too much definition. That is to say, a lack of organizational structure will create anxiety, a fear of decision-making, and will kill creativity. Furthermore, too much oversight and bureaucracy will create a different kind of anxiety in employees, foster a fear of failure, and kill creativity. A lack of structure will create no pathways on which creativity can walk, and too much structure will create too many barriers through which creativity will not be able to pass. If we want the clean road of creativity, we must have a balance of structure, especially for our employees in the workplace.   

4. The tyranny of time. Time can be a tyrant, and a focus on time can stifle creativity and shortcut the creative work to which each of us is called. Time can compress our activities, create false finish lines, and spoil the ingredients that would otherwise be needed for the artistic dish we wish to put upon humanity’s table. Even if compressed by time in our daily activities, which often we are, we must create not just a sacred space that inspires creativity but also a sacred calendar which inspires creativity. For creativity to flourish, we must first create time set apart for such flourishing. We must build the nursery of our lives in such a way that we would be ready for the pregnant work of artistic creation. In so doing, we must tell father time that while his ways are ancient, his boundaries, definitions, and purpose are subservient to greater goods. Perhaps our creativity will only need twenty seconds of his treasury; perhaps it will need thirty years. Whatever the case, it is father time who must lend freely and without repercussion to our creativity and not the other way around.  

3. Fear of judgement. Fear is a thief, who raids many a good hearts and minds. And when he raids, he often encamps, unless something much stronger gives the eviction. Creativity is a conversation, and in so being a conversation, there are a thousand voices who could enter the artist’s heart and mind and point the good work one direction or another. In a split second, competing voices will tell the artist the color choice is wrong. Shortly thereafter, the familiar and yet imagined voice of a family member or friend will determine the shape or the figure or the medium or worse, your motivation. The magazine cover re-directs a million creative acts each morning as women prepare themselves for the day and hear the two-dimensional judgement speak to their wish to be captivating. The fear and anxiety around how others may judge a work of art—even a curl of our hair or the blouse we have chosen or the meals we prepare or the emails we write—is enough to hold creativity captive and have her do its own bidding, a bidding which is neither informed nor charitable.       
 
2. Fear of failure. The artist in each of us aims at success, and sometimes we have defined that success so narrowly that our own fear of not reaching it stifles our creative pathways and vastly stunts our creative artifacts. What if it does not turn out like I want? What if I can’t solve that problem? What if it isn’t good enough? What if no one likes it? What if it doesn’t make the money I hope it returns? What if someone makes something better? What if this is too vulnerable and they know too much of me? What if someone challenges or critiques it? In all of these there is a fear of failure, and that fear of failure will speak a loud and high skepticism throughout the creative work of even the most ordinary person and their artistic pursuits. The only thing that can cut the roots of creativity deeper than the fear of failure is failure itself.

1. Failure. You failed. Your vision was not realized. What you thought you would build has not actually made its way into your life or any one else’s. More than that, others saw you fail. That life you wanted to build, that career you hoped to have, that family you wanted to cultivate, that painting you wished to sell, that building or child or resume you wanted to raise, it doesn’t exist, and you tried. Now what? Do you keep creating? Do you try again? Do you take the chance yet again and risk more failure? From the unseemly swipe of a lipstick container to a botched manuscript of your next great novel, we are presented with what the artist in each of us should do in the face of failure. More than that, and before that, we are tasked with actually defining failure. What is failure? Is what I imagine as failure actually failure? Only when we see failure rightly, no matter how small or large our artistic endeavor is, can the making man or woman truly love the creative work set before us, and truly love themselves, despite the outcome. Let the work of art fail, yet let creativity never faulter because of such failures.  

What then should we do with these creative killers? Are there antidotes? Could something replace them so that creativity thrives? What are creativity enhancers or creativity life-givers? I’m glad you asked…