Creativity, Sensitivity & Wonder

Make space to know yourself

Gentle Reader,

The artist is often portrayed as a sensitive soul, one who is closely attuned to the mystical side of life.

Such sensitivity often comes with a certain fragility of temperament, such that many famous artists required very particular conditions, not just to perform their work, but also just to comfortably exist in day-to-day life.

Reading about the working rituals of famous artists provides an interesting insight into such conditions. Picasso, who attested to the importance of solitude, began working late in the evening, through until 4 or 5am in the morning. Proust famously worked from a cork-lined room in order to insulate against noise, and used to write circumlocutory, non-confrontational letters to his neighbours, hinting obliquely at his the intrusive sounds which made their way through his padded walls. Other artists employed substances to achieve the desired effect – Balzac was said to be in the habit of drinking fifty cups of coffee a day.

Highly Sensitive Persons

Such eccentricities are associated with famous artists, but many people in any cross-section of society will identify themselves as ‘Highly Sensitive Persons’ – people who experience increased emotional sensitivity and stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli.

I have a touch of it myself. Its very hard for me to concentrate on anything without either total silence or else some kind of pleasant predictable background noise, such as being in a cafe. The prospect of being addressed by somebody, while working, could be paralysing. If a fly came in through the window and began buzzing around, it would be entirely out of the question for me to get anything done.

These oddities don’t just relate to working, either. Loud noises can be quite perturbing to me, and having to endure a loud TV or radio which I am not listening to actively, is a real annoyance. I find it very hard to sit in a room with the door open, I get tired extremely quickly, and I need a lot of time alone. On quite a few occasions, particularly on holiday, I have told my friends that I need a day alone, and am often met with quizzical glances – people assume that I dislike them or have a problem with them, whereas I simply want to read a book or walk around a city with just my thoughts.

I was at a party recently where someone asked my friend Ciara if she would like to go for brunch in the morning. Ciara said no, because, even though she had not made plans, she didn’t know how she would feel in the morning.

I thought it was great as it described succinctly why I often decline invitations. Not because they don’t appeal to me, but simply because future me might not be in the correct state of mind for them. This can clash a little with people I know who like to plan many things in advance – my cousin often asks me to dinner a month in advance. I usually tell him I could be dead by then.

I have seen the same cousin working happily in almost any environment, under variable conditions, which is both annoying and impressive since I, like the aurora borealis, can shine only under very precise conditions: the correct lunar phase, a warm ambient temperature, a comfortable chair reclining at 35 degrees, the correct serum caffeine concentration, and so on.

Such limitations can be a little frustrating. The upside, however, is that I can emote very strongly, without apparent cause. I can be truly deeply touched by a song; I can spend days, weeks, months and years thinking about a line in a book (thank you Joyce and Proust), and I am prone to feverishly concocting preposterous plans late at night, only to hazily remember them early in the morning in a confused fugue, as if they had been hatched by another person.

In the end, maybe being sensitive allows me to be creative, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe people are just weird, and we look for excuses and labels, or maybe there are many ways to be in the world, and that’s okay too.

It’s good not to attach judgement or value to these kinds of characteristics, and not to use them to classify one’s self or as a rationale for behaviours, but rather just to observe them, to know them a little bit, I think.

Wonder

We should also not look upon such attributes as entirely fixed. I learned recently from Joe Hudson about the sense of ‘wonder’ and how many of us can lose it after childhood. But not all of us – my friend Jade can stare in genuine wonder for a long time at a tree, a flower or, her favourite, a fungus. It’s quite amazing.

She squats down and gets up very close to the organism in question, gazing at it very closely, and getting to know every aspect of its appearance. Sometimes, she extends a cautious gentle hand to touch it, or sometimes she simply continues to peer with a kind of contented and restful admiration.

The first time I observed one of these scenes I was amused, but then I began to ponder on whether I was missing out. Had I lost something somewhere along the way? It looked like a good way to show up in the world – there really are a lot of things to wonder about.

Since I live in my head, my intellectual mind tends to take over when I find something out, and I try to figure out how it works, why it is possible. Maybe it’s better just to enjoy being amazed, to let the feeling grow big inside me, to let it blossom into something all of its own?

Wonder and creativity must be connected. Jade, unsurprisingly, is a very good artist who produces lovely sketches. She comes home and draws the amazing little creatures and plants which have captivated her attention. I am not sure she could do this if she didn’t wonder so much about them.

Every now and then, I get proud photos from her of a new fungus she has come across. Gratefully, I look at the pictures and I imagine how transfixed she would have been, on finding the latest subject.

Then, I think to myself, a little jealously, how can I let more wonder into my own world?