Tag: Ervin's Thoughts

Thoughts About Creativity, Technical Work, and the Brain – [1/2]

I’ve been writing about the creative process, which is a significant part of my own work. Although I don’t have formal certification or credentials in this area, I consider myself to be knowledgeable in matters of creativity and the workings of the human brain; I may not be an “expert” but I am certainly a well informed amateur. Part of my education in these matters is that I notice things in the world around me; and I do a lot of writing. Writing helps me to sort out the things I’ve noticed and make sense of them. It helps me to discover things I didn’t know that I knew, or connections that were there to be made but that I hadn’t made yet. I think you might enjoy some of my mental meanderings as regards creativity.

We can start with the fact that I am a guitar maker. And, as a guitar maker, I want my instruments to “look right”.

“Well, of course,” one can say. “Who doesn’t? But what does that actually mean?” Well, it means one of two things. Either someone is completing a project whose parameters and details have been decided from the outset, or one is doing something personal and winging it on a creative impulse. In the first case the project is “done” when the recipe has been fulfilled; the thing “looks right” because that means the same thing as having followed the recipe. Alternately, when one is approaching a “creative” project in a mechanical way, and the project has to be delivered by a certain deadline, the place to stop is when the time allotted has expired; the project is done, by definition. In the second case there is no recipe or fixed deadline to rely on; the project is “completed” and the thing looks “right” when it “feels” right and one “knows” that nothing else remains to be done. Thus, the right look actually has two distinct meanings. To illustrate them one can imagine a project that entails engaging with an enemy. When the project is done in the army way it is completed when the enemy is dead. When the project is done in the creative or personal way, it may be completed when one has won the enemy over and befriended him, or negotiated a peace with him.

One interesting way to get a handle on these distinct aspects of “the right look” has been through studies of the brain – about which some interesting research has been done lately. Some of this research has focused on certain unfortunate individuals who had, for one medical reason or another, needed to have the entire right or left lobe of their brains surgically removed. This horrible circumstance presented a unique opportunity for studying such subjects after they returned to “normal post-surgical life”. Except that their lives were not “normal” any longer.

The Right half of the brain, the scientists have told us, is responsible for imagination, emotion, lateral thinking, creativity, intuitive connectivity, and capacity to appreciate beauty. The Left half is the critical mind: it carries out the functions of linear thinking, logic, assessment, planning, and calculation. And the surgical recoverees were observed to have new deficits in their mental lives that were, unsurprisingly, a direct function of which half of their brains they’d lost.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: the concept of strict division of right-brain/left-brain functions has taken some hits lately as the scientific community has published studies on the plasticity of the brain and how one half of it can learn to take over some of the functions of the other half. Still, if one really only has one half of a brain, I think we can be given a bit of slack in being categorical about how the brain works; if there is only one half a brain, there is no other half to share plasticity with. Also, even though having only half a brain is an extreme circumstance, it can be useful to push something to an extreme in order to make a point about, or to get insights into, that thing. Extreme doesn’t necessarily invalidate.]

Individuals who lost the emotional part of their brains were found to retain memory as well as verbal, computational, and mechanical skills. But they lost the ability to make personal on-the-spot decisions based in personal preference — such as we all make a thousand times a day without even stopping to think about it. Such people would be completely stymied, for example, in trying to figure out where to go for the weekend, or even which breakfast cereal they’d most enjoy eating — without making long lists of these choices’ various pros and cons. If Mr. Spock had lost his right brain just before the Klingons attacked the Enterprise then he’d have to make lists of every possible scenario involved in responding to the attack, and they would have taken over the Enterprise before he got halfway through with that list.

On the other hand, individuals who’d lost the left halves of their brains couldn’t plan their way out of a paper bag. They couldn’t hold thoughts together. Their lives were dominated by impulse. They’d lost the ability to engage in calculation and goal-oriented, systematic (first-this-then-that), exploratory (what if), critical (i.e., if-this-then-that type), or even ordinary sorting-this-out-from-that thinking. Most terribly, they had lost the capacity to feel personally invested in anything, in the moment – which has everything to do with getting the normal internal cues to any sense of “rightness” or “wrongness” of anything. These people became incapable of making assessments. Their “thinking” also lacked any sense of complexity, comparative significance, consequences, depth, flexibility, or carry-over. They really were stuck in the realm of impulse. And, needless to say, they were as incapable of meaningful personal attachments as they were unable to engage in disciplined behavior.

Ecce Donald Trump who, as I write this in 2017, gives every sign of being genuinely brain damaged in this way. He seems equally upset by being given a bad tweet by a nine-year-old as he is by a criticism from a head of state. He has no sense of proportion or carry-over; he doesn’t remember what he said last week; he spends time insisting that Mexico to pay for a wall instead of appointing the ambassadors, officials, and functionaries who would be making the government function. With Trump the dial is always set at the same number and the oven is always set at the same temperature regardless of what’s being baked. Please, re-read the previous paragraph.

An ability to sense the “rightness” or “wrongness” of things, just mentioned above, brings us to the doorstep of art and design — in which the dominant mindset is the striving to arrive at the internal cues that signal “it’s right and it’s done and I can stop now.” The striving can be endlessly modified by training and experience all life long; but the artist (or cook, athlete, gardener, fisherman, etc.) stops only when he knows it’s time to stop; short of that, he keeps on working, expressing, and seeking. There is otherwise no calculation, statistic, timer, rule book, syllabus, recipe, blueprint, or deadline to otherwise tell him that his task is complete. Those are all left-brain tools. The artist simply stops when he “knows” that it’s time to stop.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

[November, 2016]

There’s a story that I’ve loved ever since I first heard it.  It comes courtesy of Alexander Woolcott, whom you may have heard of.  Mr. Woolcott was the Dean of American Letters in the 1930s and 1940s.  He knew everyone who was anyone and was the most respected single voice in the world of American arts and literature.  His opinion of who was who, and what was good or not good – in both literature and the theatre — carried great weight.

Woolcott lived in the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan.  Because of Woolcott’s reputation and activities, the Algonquin management was good enough to set aside one of its rooms as a meeting place for anyone and everyone who was in town and desired stimulating and pleasurable conversation. The centerpiece of the room was a large round table — the fabled Algonquin Round Table.  And around it sat many of the most significant thinkers of the day in the fields of literature, the arts, science, business, sociology, the theatre, psychology, film, economics, books, culture in general and even politics — all in free exchange of their beliefs, ideas, and knowledge.  

The Algonquin round table ran from 1919 to 1929, in open discussion, and without any particular agenda other than to cast light on things and brainstorm.  As I said, anyone who was in town and cared to have serious conversation about past, current, and future events – or just  otherwise participate — was welcome to do so.  Our phrase ‘round table discussion’ originated there.  That cultural Mecca was the epicenter for one of the most significant outpouring of intellectual, artistic, economic, and creative thought and stimulation the modern world has known — and it was Mr. Woolcott’s invention and gift.  You can learn more about it through Wikipedia.

Woolcott was a writer as well as an opinion maker, and he penned the following Christmas story that has long been dear to my heart.  I’ll try to tell it as well as he did.   I like the story because it seems to recognize the good in people that often goes unrecognized.  It is, in its own way, a story about me, and you, and our neighbors.

I hope this doesn’t come off as too preachy and treacly.  But it’s a story that has always brought a lump to my throat, when I think of it.

The story begins on a cold, bleak Christmas Eve.  It’s Winter; the day has worn away, and it’s getting dark.  An icy, cutting wind is blowing through the town’s empty streets.  These are completely deserted.  The townspeople are at home, in front of their fires with their families, with festive Christmas dinners soon to be had.  All is quiet and still except for the whistle of the wind, and the incessant blowing of the sleety wind.  There is an unexpected movement in the stillness, however.  It’s an old beggar, poorly clothed and huddled in a doorway, trying to escape the freezing shafts of the wind.  The poor man looks like he’s seen much better days.  He moves along the street from doorway to doorway, slowly, trying to huddle out of the wind, and driven by the freezing cold.  He seems to have no destination other than any little shelter he can find.  After a while he reaches the town’s church, whose doorway is deeper and offers some greater degree of protection from the chill; he retreats into it as far as he can.  And, pressing his back against the door, he is surprised to find it yielding.  It has been left unlocked.  He pushes it open and, cautiously, goes into the church.

The building is empty.  All is quiet.  The lights of many candles illuminate the space with a warm and intimate glow.  And in the front, at the altar, a Christmas feast has been laid out.  There are also festively wrapped packages and presents in a pile on the floor; the congregation has made lavish gifts to the Christ Child to celebrate his birth.  Among the offerings and fineries there are bolts of expensive, colorful cloth.  And in the center of it all is a table laden with delicacies that will be consumed in a short while, when the church members come in for that night’s special Christmas service.

The old beggar looks at this display hungrily.  He hasn’t eaten in days.  Cautiously, he approaches the table, drawn to its odors and promise of plenty, looking about to see if anyone is going to raise an alarm.  But no: he is alone.  He takes a little food . . . and then some more food.  He eats, ravenously and gratefully, until he is satisfied.  It’s not cold in the church, but with his tummy full now, and his blood going to it, he feels the cold.  He wraps some of the cloths around himself to warm himself.  The fabrics are of bright, vibrant hues.

Being wrapped in such festive colors, and being surrounded by the churchly shine and glitter, the beggar remembers that many years ago, when he was a young man, he worked in a circus.  He was a juggler, and did his work in brightly colored clothing.  The colors, lights, and sparkle have reminded him of that circus life left behind long, long ago, and that he hadn’t thought about in many years.  

He has not done any juggling since he left the circus; and it occurs to him to wonder if he can still do it.  So he goes to a large fruit bowl in the middle of the table and takes some apples from it, and begins to juggle a few of them. He can still do it!  Slowly, revived by the food he’s just eaten, and being warmed up by his wrappings, and also loosening up the muscles of his arms and hands with the exercise of juggling, he gradually juggles faster.  His coordination starts to come back to him.  And he takes more apples from the bowl, and juggles them!  Pretty soon, he’s juggling more things than he’s ever juggled before.  He’s never juggled this well!  He’s inspired!  It is a magical, private moment.

But it is only a moment, and after a while the impulse and inspiration pass.  It’s time for him to go; people will soon be arriving.  The beggar puts the apples back into the bowl.  He removes his warming fabrics, re-folds them, and goes out, back into the cold dark night.  The church is silent.

Unbeknownst to the beggar, two priests have been watching him from an alcove behind a curtain.  After he has left, one of the priests turns to the other and says, “Did you see that?  Did you see what that filthy old beggar did?  He touched our Christ’s gifts.  He ate his food.  He played with it!  What a sacrilege!  What a desecration!”

His companion, who is the older and wiser of the two, slowly turns to him and says, “oh . . . is that how you saw it?  I saw it differently.  You know, our congregants are prosperous people.  Yes, they have bought many fine gifts for our Christ and our church.  But they lead comfortable lives and these things are easy for them to buy and give.  This old man, he gave a gift too.  But . . . he gave of his ability.  He gave of his skill.  He gave of himself.  Truly, he gave the finest gift of all”. 

 That, my friends, is a generous insight.  And at times I think that this is us, the artists and guitar makers and musicians . . . and parents and homemakers . . . and healers and teachers . . . and anyone else like us who do the best we can in spite of hardships . . . of which there are plenty all around us.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  

And, speaking of the finest gift of all, this brings me to someone who has made no discernible gifts to anyone, ever: the new prez, Mr. Trump; he never seems to have had a generous impulse or warm thought.  As I write this, the 2016 elections are three days behind me and I feel ill.  

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