Creative person. Thirdly, spiritual qualities

Dedicated to Lyubov Andreevna Arsentieva

Once upon a time there lived a Handle. The most ordinary ball pen with replaceable rods. She was born with her little sisters in a plastic factory and lay with them in a box. Either the stars somehow lined up in a special astrological row, or the replacement Lyubasha, smiling frivolously, thought about the electrician Petka, who was passing by, but our Hand melted out of the general form with a romantic soul and creative nature.
“Ah,” thought the newborn, “how beautiful this world is and how beautiful I am!” I really want to write with my thin core something unusually airy and creatively talented. I'm capable of this!
- There, outside the window of our factory there is huge world,” accountant Lisa’s pen told the newborns. The hostess often took her with her, carrying her away in her handbag, and Lisa’s hand saw a lot of interesting things in that other life. – You will all have your own masters and your own records. Some will leave a big mark on themselves, others will write down little things. Each has its own destiny.
“I will have the most interesting future,” our romantic nature thought, and with great feeling she fell asleep in a box among her girlfriends.
She woke up because a bright light came into the box, and she saw a huge store, lit by large chandeliers on the stucco ceiling. All the pens were laid out on a large beautiful white counter. Next to them lay the frivolous notebooks, solid diaries and reverent notebooks. It was a store Child's world" A new one was coming academic year, and schoolchildren bought up brand new pens and stuffed them into brand new backpacks. And our Hand was preparing to exchange the boring counter for a cheerful and bright briefcase, but fate prepared an unexpected surprise for her. Our pen was bought by a fat and strict customer. Imagine the disappointment of our romantic nature when it ended up on the table of its owner, the chief accountant of a large enterprise. Every day her little trembling core wrote endless columns of numbers, equalized debits and credits, and signed papers a hundred times, no less, in the firm and unyielding handwriting of her mistress. The hand began to cry more than once, experiencing melancholy from its unexpressed creative potential, and didn’t know what to do. All the items on the accountant’s desk lay in a strict and silent order, no one supported the new neighbor, and the straightforward stack of paper even condemned her.
“Oh, so,” thought the Hand, “well, I’ll ask you all!” “And one early spring morning on the accounting report, instead of her mistress’s adamant signature, she wrote a frivolous poem about love. What started here! The director called the owner into his office. She came from there looking red and, wheezing angrily, threw our Handle into the trash bin.
“Well, it’s a change of life after all,” thought the Hand. - I'm not going to give up just like that. - And she rolled out of the basket onto the floor.
- Which beautiful pen, thought the cleaning lady as she removed the trash in the evening. “My daughter has just run out of strength, and her salary is still a long way off.” There are still many pens on the table. I’ll take this to my Irinka, she’ll have something to go to school with.
So our pen changed its home, but was not very happy about it. Her new owner, the girl Irinka, was a capricious child, didn’t want to study, didn’t like to write in notebooks, whined all the time and demanded candy. New pen She wasn’t happy at all, but she took it to school.
“My God, what a madhouse I’ve found myself in,” thought the Hand, fearfully sticking its thin tip out of Irinka’s briefcase. Crowds of frantic children rushed along the corridors of a huge house called “School”, throwing pieces of paper, rubber bands, and, worst of all, fragments of pens just like hers at each other. – I don’t want such a fate, I’m a creative and nervous person! “School” is contraindicated for me!
When Irinka was returning home in the evening, our Hand jumped out onto the asphalt and remained lying there, waiting with creative impatience for what would happen. No, she's not such a fool anymore! She will now choose her own mistress! Our Hand began to look at people passing by. For passers-by with angry faces and capricious children, the Handle tried to be invisible; for smiling and cheerful passers-by, it rolled out onto the pavement. It was already getting dark, it was raining, and my hand was getting cold.
- Am I really going to die on the street! What about my creative nature?
The pen cried again from such hopelessness. She remembered her sisters, the cozy box and smiled the way her shift worker Lyubasha smiled, looking at the electrician Petka. Here the stars again stood in an unusual astrological row, and at that moment something clinked loudly next to the handle. A bunch of keys fell out of a lady's bag, and a tired woman leaned over the handle.
“Every time I go home, mortally tired, my keys try to fall out of my bag and I have to look for them in the dark,” the woman grumbled and picked up our pen from the ground along with the keys.
- What is this? Pen! I just forgot mine at work, and I still need to write two scripts overnight. “The woman put the pen and keys in her purse and went home.
“She grumbles all the time when we fall to the ground,” the old apartment keys grumbled. – We have been living with Lyubov Andreevna for many years and we see how little she is on fresh air, works and works all the time. We deliberately keep her outside so that she can breathe in oxygen a little longer, otherwise her health has already weakened from endless work.
- If even the keys take care of their owner, then who is she? - thought the Handle, but then, along with the keys, they took it out of the bag and put it on desk. There were mountains of scribbled papers on the table.
- Is it really an accountant again? No, I can’t stand this,” our creative nature was ready to cry again. But then the hostess sat down at the table and began to write. The little thin pen of the Hand wrote out the concert script, and after it the order of the artists’ performances in the city square appeared on paper. Poems and remarks for future ideas and events were written on small notes. The two of them worked all night, and in the morning the hostess fell asleep, resting her head on the table and our Hand. The hand tried not to move so as not to disturb the sleep of its new owner. She found her destiny and, happy, smiled, thinking about new creative plans. All the objects lying on the table and in the room approved of her action. Stacks of paper, old desk lamp, a glass of unfinished tea, pencils and erasers taken new girlfriend into their family and all together were looking forward to the mistress waking up, and they would happily help Lyubov Andreevna in her creative plans!

Creative people should take care of their psyche. Not long ago, a group of researchers from different countries The results of observation of creative people were presented. Moreover, about 1 million were covered. people As it turns out, journalists and writers are in danger of becoming depressed; photographers and dancers are at risk of bipolar disorders - manic depressive psychoses; Artists and musicians are sometimes hindered by strong emotionality. Among people of art there is a higher percentage nervous breakdowns. Even the ancient Chinese sages believed that looking at an hourglass means improving your energy, emotional condition. And, indeed, experiments by psychologists have proven that the effect of contemplating falling sand is simply colossal!

Ideal gift

Sand flows “for the sake of being” in “flask”, “ball” and other types of products. The color of the sand, the shape of the flasks, the richness of the design - everything matters when choosing a gift for a creative person. Time moves forward, surprising us with more and more advanced technologies, but the ancient invention does not lose and will never lose its attractiveness. A good hourglass as a gift is not only elegant decorative element, this is literally a mystical object that helps you concentrate.

Inspiration through contemplation

How often have writers, poets, artists, singers, and musicians found inspiration in this symbol of eternity.

The great symbolist Balmont called time running away in an hourglass.

Singer Sting dreams of placing the whole world in an hourglass.

The Argentine thinker Borges, in his boundless fantasies, compares the hourglass with those vessels that do not wear out.

In the East they are called the standard of space. And ambassadors in ancient times, wanting to prove their sincerity, spoke of the purity of their thoughts as a handful of sand enclosed in a flask.

It is interesting that psychologists have also been able to find out how the color of pouring sand affects the emotional state. Green sand will help you cope with violent thoughts, fear and aggression. Yellow sand is a wonderful relaxer. Blue and cyan colors inspire romantic ideas, and red awakens passionate impulses.

What do they wake up? gems, sleeping in the most expensive hourglass? Only the nouveau riche can talk about this. "Sand" in such jewelry entirely made of emeralds and diamonds. For every taste!

Mystical talisman

It is not for nothing that the symbol of eternal time has always been on the desks of philosophers, magicians and alchemists. Too much great importance they gave the flowing sand. Hourglass then they help to concentrate and value the time when they are in the “knowledge sector”. There is a mystical sign: when Sunbeam falls on the flowing sand, the hourglass acquires the power of a talisman - a concentrator of light energy. A watch with a stand made of natural stone, and wooden framing is most suitable for energy " creative imagination" It is not for nothing that in Feng Shui they are personified with the energy of Qi, which is constantly moving.

No, you can dislike them simply out of envy - talented people are often successful in their careers. However, talent is usually associated with positive features character - sensitivity to others, the ability to understand, the desire to make the lives of others brighter. Alas, not only good things are characteristic of creative people: research by psychologists has shown that there are a number of unpleasant qualities that gifted individuals possess more often than the average person.

1. Creative people lie more willingly and more sophisticatedly.

2. At the same time, they are also distrustful!

Paradox: despite the fact that creative people They themselves love to lie and perfectly recognize the lies of others; they are characterized by increased distrust. Psychologists who have established this fact believe that distrust is not an accidental companion of a talented nature: it is its essence. The point is that at the core creative thinking lies the ability to question what seems to other people to be a long-resolved question with only one answer. Gifted people think in terms of “what if...” - they are capable in a non-standard way use everyday objects, find unexpected features in phenomena that are considered well studied, look at the situation from unexpected points of view. However, researchers have found that it is mainly those creative people who are not public figures who are distrustful, but those who, by their line of work, are forced to constantly resort to self-presentation cannot afford the luxury of distrusting others. on the contrary, they must captivate others with their ideas and initiatives, and without faith in others this is impossible**.

3. Gifted people are often impudent.

With characteristic talented individuals Moral relativism is associated with another unpleasant quality - impudence. The researchers analyzed the personalities of 1,304 volunteers using the six-dimensional personality model HEXACO, one of the scales of which is devoted to assessing qualities such as sincerity, fairness, generosity and modesty. After this, all volunteers had to solve several tests to evaluate their creativity. It turned out that the most gifted had minimal indicators for all of the mentioned qualities. They especially lacked modesty - according to researchers, gifted people are better aware of their talents than others and, as a rule, are unusually high opinion About Me. Another interesting result of the study was that between creative and ordinary people there was no significant difference in the manifestations of a number of qualities traditionally associated with giftedness - tolerance, readiness for dialogue, gentleness, kindness, etc. But the talented ones found much more high performance in terms of openness to new experiences and experiments***.

4. Creative people are more likely to suffer from clinical depression

A gifted person - not too much good comrade not only because he is prone to lying: in addition, he is often in a bad mood. Moreover, talented people easily fall into depression and come out of it much more difficult. Every educated person will easily remember the names of writers and artists in whose work it is easy to detect panicky notes, but will be very surprised to learn that modern psychologist would find an increased tendency to depression not only among authors such as Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, but even among those whose work was marked by faith in God and hope for the best, such as Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy. Creative people are susceptible a large number various phobias: for example, Edgar Allan Poe and Nikolai Gogol suffered from the same fear - being buried alive. Swedish psychologists decided to test whether the connection between talent and depression was just a common stereotype, and used data from 1.2 million patients in psychiatric clinics and their relatives to do this. Patient cards included mention of their professions, and psychologists easily compiled statistics on the prevalence of various mental illnesses among representatives of one or another occupation. It turned out that workers in creative professions - in particular, writers, photographers and dancers - are much more likely to suffer from serious illnesses - for example, they were 8% more likely than other people to be diagnosed with bipolar affective personality disorder. In addition, for example, writers are 121% more likely to suffer from their living conditions than ordinary people, and almost 50% more likely to commit suicide. The fact that mental illnesses (schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder and even anorexia) were more common among relatives of representatives of creative professions than among other people allowed scientists to draw another important conclusion: both the ability to be creative and the mentioned disorders are largely due to genetics.

*J. Walczyka et al. "The Creativity of Lying: Divergent Thinking and Ideational Correlates of the Resolution of Social Dilemmas." Creativity Research Journal, 2008.

** J. Mayer, T. Mussweiler “Suspicious spirits, flexible minds: When distrust enhances creativity.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011.

*** P. Silvia et al. “Cantankerous creativity: Honesty–Humility, Agreeability, and the HEXACO structure of creative achievement.” Personality and Individual Differences, 2011.

**** S. Kyaga et al. “Mental illness, suicide and creativity: 40-year prospective total population study.” Journal of Psychiatric Research. 2013.

Those people who have experienced depression understand the loneliness it brings. Depression has the ability to make us feel as if we are worthless and have no real direction in life. But science shows us that this condition is even more dangerous than we may see. The fact is that people with a creative mind are able to perceive the world differently than others.

There is a lot of evidence linking the creative mind to depression and other issues mental health. However, they are not at all what you might think. Although crazy artists and creative minds have often been linked to mental health problems, science shows that feelings of depression arise from the way their brains interact with environment, and not because of their work. Some creative people may feel that they are particularly prone to depression, when in fact they are experiencing a fairly natural reaction to the world around them.

The creative brain operates on another level

Scientists say that less creative individuals tend to adapt to situations and environments fairly quickly, based on what they call authority figures. But creative people perceive such situations completely differently.

Their flexibility allows them to perceive things in a fresh and new way, which is an important basis for creativity. But this also means that they inner world very complex, ambiguous and not just black and white, but filled with shades of gray. This world is filled with many questions and only a few simple answers. While less creative people quickly react to a situation based on what they were told by people who are authoritative for them - parents, teachers, priests, a creative person lives in an unsteady and foggy world.

Creative people perceive the world from a different perspective: we question, reflect and analyze. This can unfortunately lead to feelings of isolation, social alienation or depression, as creative people are different from everyone else and they are certainly aware of it. What may seem “normal” to other people can be stressful for a creative person due to a complex approach to society.

You are not alone

This feeling of isolation is understandable, and there are many people who feel completely alone in this world. We all need to find another person like us to experience true feeling accessories. Just as a politician, for example, will feel uncomfortable in a huge dance school, a person with a creative mind in a formal setting will feel as if he does not belong in this environment. Without the right tools and timely encouragement and support to help a creative person understand the differences that make them special, they can suffer from depression for a very long time.

Creative potential

Psychologists say there are a few things we need to understand when it comes to creative minds. They must recognize that talent should never be wasted, as it is a huge gift nature. You need to discover your talent and develop it. When a person blocks him, he gives up his true essence, which can lead to severe depression.

It must also be recognized that less original people can perceive creative person how strange. But being weird is much more interesting than being normal. If you are a creative person, surround yourself with similar people. Your creativity will flourish, not to mention you will be loved and supported for who you are.

conclusions

Psychologists recognize that creative individuals have a more pronounced tendency to mental illness, which come from a problem filtering the multiple signals that enter their brain. Some people avoid contact with other people because they are very sensitive individuals. But if such people understand their uniqueness, they will be able to gain some ground under their feet in the fight against depression.

Have you met people in your life creative nature, very fragile, vulnerable and so crystal that could break from one touch of this strange, scary world? Most likely they met. So how do you like it? Have you analyzed them? Have you looked into your eyes? Have you tried to find out what's going on in their heads? Yes, definitely. I want to tell you about one such girl.

A few years ago I met a girl. She was very strange and tired. The skin was gray, the eyes were red and swollen with bruises that were left by insomnia, but they were bright green, like birch leaves in the sun, the lips were so... Bloody, bitten. She was quite tall, but thin, and it was noticeable that it was not very easy for her to move. She was in pain, very strong. The clothes were black, as if she was going to someone's funeral or wake. I saw her on a dirty bus, in which I was traveling on business, she was sitting in the very last seat and, looking out the window, drew something in a small notebook on a spring. As soon as I looked at her, I had a great desire to hug her and help her in some way, because she looked very sad and looked like she was about to cry. So I looked at her for several tens of minutes, until the driver stopped the bus at the right stop and she quickly got ready and got out. I played her image in my head for a long time and couldn’t stop. She called me genuine interest. Her attraction and aura was very strong for me.

A month and a half has passed since that moment, and I had almost forgotten it, but life forced me to remind...

Arriving at one of the exhibitions of paintings by some little-known artist, I saw her again. Still the same look, the same lips, the same skin and body, on which clothes are black, like the emptiness of space. I approached her and introduced myself very shyly. I don’t like these forced and tired questions, like: “how are you? ", "How are you feeling? “, after all, it was already clear that things were not going well, and her health left much to be desired, so I invited her to take a walk in one of the many green parks of our town. The meeting was scheduled at about six in the evening, but I arrived early, I was still afraid of being late. Walking through the park, we talked about a lot of things. I learned a lot about her. Her main activity was writing. She wrote short depressive stories, just for her condition, and published several books. I still remember her voice and the light smile that appeared naturally during our conversation. Since I was very sensitive to other people's moods, I noticed she was depressed. Yes, it may sound very loud and premature, but still, her condition is simple bad mood it was impossible to name. Having gotten to know her better, I realized that she has a very vulnerable and susceptible soul, which can crumble into pieces at one thoughtless touch of a person. If you imagine her soul in the form of a picture, it can be described something like this:

“Everything is vague and insignificant, but there are very bright colors and live side by side with darkness and nothingness, which are reinforced by a melancholy that grows and grows every day. Imagine a huge space, a field, with green grass and very red poppies, it is fenced with tall birch trees, willows and oaks, and next to it there is a small black lake, which grows with every rain from her tears. "She easily tolerates physical pain. Often, the moral turns into physical. It's easier for her. Was.

I recently found out that she passed away. She was depressed for several years and could not stand it. They say that almost no one came to her funeral, and this is sad, because she was a truly wonderful, kind and open person.

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