The Perfect Imperfections of Creative People

In a survey of the most desirable occupation for a mate “poet” and “novelist” scored near the top. If you’re a poet or novelist yourself I can just see you now. You’re stifling a knowing chuckle and asking, “Did the respondents have the remotest idea what might be in store for them if in fact their mate had either of those careers–or was a painter, sculptor, dancer, composer, violinist, etc? Or were they expressing some romantic fantasy picked up from books and movies? Would it be a blissful and fulfilling match made in heaven or would it be full of turmoil and misunderstanding? Would it be any different than having a less artistically-bent man or woman partner? When all was said and done, would it be worth it?”

I’ve known creative people all my life–grew up in a family of sensitive, fiery Welsh musical people–and for the last fifty years of it have been spending time with writers, painters, and poets in particular, and reading the life stories of the most eminent creators ever to kick up dust on this earth and of their almost miraculous achievements and analyses of their inner psychological workings. This blog puts me in contact with thousands of them in 172 countries.

The end result is that to me artists are the most enthralling, most complicated, gall-darndest, stupefying, generally frustrating, and when in their brooding dark  nasty moods the most demanding, maddening, impossible yet endearing individuals on this globe–in short, immensely fascinating, highly-productive, beautiful, focused, exasperating beings. Though they are often no more possible to understand than I can understand the mystery I call myself, and often torture to live with. Rascals like Dylan Thomas, Vincent van Gogh, or Jackson Pollack: there’s just, well,  something irresistible about them.

In my most visited blog post–“The Characteristics of Creative People: What We Learn from Writers, Artists, Dancers, Musicians, and Actors”–I laid out just that, the characteristics of people who do creative things that conspire to make them able to do those things. I said creative people possess extraordinary energy and a compulsion to work, are willing to sacrifice almost everything else for their art with no hesitations, can produce tremendous volumes of work, value authenticity, integrity, and sincerity, are oriented toward the fullest development of their creative potentials, are resilient and able to overcome obstacles and to persevere,  must have the ability to attract and hold an audience, are more self-confident, bold, and daring than the vast majority of people, and so on

I want to fill out the picture of these original, gifted, talented people who contribute so many ideas and such beauty and creative feats with a description of artists’ characteristics many people consider flaws, imperfections, but which I think if they are imperfections are perfect imperfections that in some convoluted upside down, day is night, night is day way also equip them for the artist’s unusual life.

Artists–creative people of all sorts–are often indifferent to social “rules” and values, and have far less respect for people in authority than the people around them. The artist’s main motivation I think is to be left alone. He craves the freedom to express himself, to experiment, to blunder, to go this way and that without rhyme or reason, and rules and external authority hold him back. Artists are often rebellious and uncooperative for the same reason, finding it extremely difficult and painful to do things they really don’t want to do simply because another human being says they should do it, no matter who he or she may be.

They are careless, disorderly, absentminded, forgetful, sloppy with details and matters they consider unimportant though their partner and their teachers and editors and such may consider them extremely important, and there may be conflicts. In a study comparing experienced writers with novices it was found that experienced writers forget what they have just written almost immediately after finishing a piece while novices remember their pieces in detail. Probably like every writer reading this I’ve had the experience many times of finding in computer files or drawers completely finished, refined, polished pieces–even finished novels–I wrote and completely forgot about. My wife-editor will often say, “Remember that thing you wrote about….” And I’ll say, “Oh yah, I forgot about that.” To the artist to say the work is DONE means that his job of doing the creative work–the fun stuff– is done, the fun is over; let someone else worry about the middling details.

They may be argumentative, cynical, and sarcastic, “too” direct–and tactless and intolerant. Sensitive to their every mood, and every shade of their moods, they are often overly emotional and temperamental, and easily hurt and quick to anger. Aware at every moment of what they are feeling and what they are thinking, they are self-absorbed in ways other people cannot fathom. Bundles of energy, their bodies and minds are perpetually active–over-active, electrically-charged in a way that a partner may not be prepared for or know how to respond to.

The Latin sine qua non means literally “without which, not.” It means the essential, crucial, and indispensable ingredient without which something would not be possible. I think that without their imperfections artists could not be artists any more than they could be artists without their positive creative characteristics. In other words, their imperfections are–for them–perfect.

© 2017 David J. Rogers

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