Creativity (15 page)
Authors: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Field, the Domain, and the Unconscious
At first sight, incubation seems to occur exclusively within the mind; what’s more, within the mind’s hidden recesses where consciousness is unable to reach. But after a closer look, we must admit that even in the unconscious the symbol system and the social environment play important roles. In the first place, it is obvious that incubation cannot work for a person who has not mastered a domain or been involved in a field. A new solution to quantum electrodynamics doesn’t occur to a person unfamiliar with this branch of physics, no matter how long he or she sleeps.
Even though subconscious thinking may not follow rational lines, it still follows patterns that were established during conscious learning. We internalize the knowledge of the domain, the concerns of the field, and they become part of the way our minds are organized. It is often not necessary to perform an experiment to know that something won’t work: Theoretical knowledge can predict the outcome. Similarly, we can predict what our colleagues will say if we express publicly certain ideas. When we sit alone in our study and say that an idea won’t work, what we may be saying is that none of t
he people whose opinions matter will accept it. These internalized criteria of the domain and the field do not disappear when the thought process goes underground. They are probably less insistent
than when we are aware of what we are doing, but they still shape and control how combinations of ideas are evaluated and selected.
But just as one must take the concerns of the discipline seriously, one must also be willing to take a stand against received wisdom, if the conditions warrant it. Otherwise no advance is possible. The all-important tension between trusting domain knowledge yet being ready to reject it is well illustrated by Frank Offner’s description of what went on in his mind as he was trying to develop the first electronic controls that eventually made possible the commercial use of jet engines:
If you understand science and a question comes up and you want to do something, then you can work out a good solution very easily. If you don’t have a good scientific background, you can’t. If I had looked at what other people had done before, like in the jet engines, I would have been lost. Everybody attacked it exactly the wrong way. They thought the way that I did it was impossible. [Norbert] Weiner, the mathematician—I read his book on cybernetics—that said it was impossible. But I used rate acceleration feedback, and it worked.
What Offner points out here is that a creative solution often requires using knowledge from one part of the domain to correct the accepted beliefs of the field—which are based on different conclusions derived from other parts of the same domain. In this case, cybernetic theory seemed to exclude the possibility of controls that would keep the speed of the jet engine exactly constant. But before ever seeing a jet engine, by thinking about what the controls were supposed to accomplish and then going back to basic physics, Offner came up with a design that worked and was implemented.
Creative thoughts evolve in this gap filled with tension—holding on to what is known and accepted while tending toward a still ill-defined truth that is barely glimpsed on the other side of the chasm. Even when thoughts incubate below the threshold of consciousness, this tension is present.
T
HE
“A
HA
!” E
XPERIENCE
Most of the people in our sample—but not all—recall with great intensity and precision a particular moment when some major prob
lem crystallized in their minds in such a way that a solution became all but inevitable, requiring only a matter of time and hard work. For presented problems, the insight might even include the particulars of the solution. Here are two examples from Frank Offner:
It will hit me maybe in the middle of the night. It turns around somehow inside your brain. I can tell you where I was when I got the answer how to stabilize the jet control with a feedback. I was sitting on a sofa, I guess this was before I was married, at some friend’s house and a little bit bored and the answer hit me, “Ah!” and I put in the derivative term.
And another one. I was going to do my Ph.D. thesis on nerve excitation. There were two sets of equations describing nerve excitation. I was going to make some experiments to see which was the right one, one made at the University of Chicago, the other in England, and I was going to see which was the more accurate. And I tried to work out the mathematics to see what kind of experiment would [be decisive]. I remember I was taking a shower when I saw how to solve that problem. I sat down to solve that problem and I found that the equations were just two ways of saying the same thing.
So I had to do something else [for the thesis].
The insight presumably occurs when a subconscious connection between ideas fits so well that it is forced to pop out into awareness, like a cork held underwater breaking out into the air after it is released.
T
HE
99 P
ERCENT
P
ERSPIRATION
After an insight occurs, one must check it out to see if the connections genuinely make sense. The painter steps back from the canvas to see whether the composition works, the poet rereads the verse with a more critical eye, the scientist sits down to do the calculations or run the experiments. Most lovely insights never go any farther, because under the cold light of reason fatal flaws appear. But if everything checks out, the slow and often routine work of elaboration begins.
There are four main conditions that are important during this stage of the process. First of all, the person must pay attention to the
developing work, to notice when new ideas, new problems, and new insights arise out of the interaction with the medium. Keeping the mind open and flexible is an important aspect of the way creative persons carry on their work. Next, one must pay attention to one’s goals and feelings, to know whether the work is indeed proceeding as intended. The third condition is to keep in touch with domain knowledge, to use the most effective techniques, the fullest information, and the best theories as one proceeds. And finally, especially in the later stages of the process, it is importa
nt to listen to colleagues in the field. By interacting with others involved with similar problems, it is possible to correct a line of solution that is going in the wrong direction, to refine and focus one’s ideas, and to find the most convincing mode of presenting them, the one that has the best chance of being accepted.
The historian Natalie Davis describes how she feels during the last stage of the creative process, when all that is left is the writing up of the results of her research:
If I didn’t have affect in a project, if I had lost it or maybe it didn’t last too long, it would lose its spark. I mean, I don’t want to do something that I have lost my love for. I think that everybody is perhaps that way, but I am very much that way. It is hard to be creative if you are just doing something doggedly. If I didn’t have curiosity, if I felt that my curiosity was limited, then the novelty part of it would be gone. Because it is the curiosity that has often pushed me to think of ways of finding out about something that people thought you could never find out about
. Or ways of looking at a subject that have never been looked at before. That’s what keeps me running back and forth to the library, and just thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
Barry Commoner describes the last phases of his work, when he has to write things down, or communicate them to an audience:
Some of the work is extremely hard from the point of view of creating a clear statement. For example, in one of my books I wrote a chapter on thermodynamics designed for the lay public. That probably went through fifteen drafts. It was the most difficult writing I ever had to do, because it’s a very difficult subject to put
into ordinary lay terms. And that’s one of the things I’ve done I’m most proud of. I’ve had engineers tell me that for the first time they had a clear picture of thermodynamics from it. So I enjoy that a great deal. I enjoy communicating. Same with speaking. I do a lot of speaking. And I really enjoy seeing the audience paying attention—listening, understanding it.
One thing about creative work is that it’s never done. In different words, every person we interviewed said that it was equally true that they had worked every minute of their careers, and that they had never worked a day in all their lives. They experienced even the most focused immersion in extremely difficult tasks as a lark, an exhilarating and playful adventure.
It is easy to resent this attitude and see the inner freedom of the creative person as an elite privilege. While the rest of us are struggling at boring jobs, they have the luxury of doing what they love to do, not knowing whether it is work or play. There might be an element of truth in this. But far more important, in my opinion, is the message that the creative person is sending us: You, too, can spend your life doing what you love to do. After all, most of the people we interviewed were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth; many came from humble origins and struggled to
create a career that allowed them to keep exploring their interests. Even if we don’t have the good fortune to discover a new chemical element or write a great story, the love of the creative process for its own sake is available to all. It is difficult to imagine a richer life.
C
reative persons differ from one another in a variety of ways, b
ut in one respect they are unanimous: They
all love what they do. It is not the hope of achieving fame or making money that drives them; rather, it is the opportunity to do the work that they enjoy doing. Jacob Rabinow explains: “You invent for the hell of it. I don’t start with the idea, ‘What will make money?’ This is a rough world; money’s important. But if I have to trade between what’s fun for me and what’s money-making, I’ll take what’s fun.” The novelist Naguib Mahfouz concurs in more genteel tones: “I love my work more than I love what it produces. I am dedicated to the work regardless of its consequences.” We found the same sentiments in
every single interview.
What is extraordinary in this case is that we talked to engineers and chemists, writers and musicians, businesspersons and social reformers, historians and architects, sociologists and physicians—and they all agree that they do what they do primarily because it’s fun. Yet many others in the same occupations don’t enjoy what they do. So we have to assume that it is not
what
these people do that counts but
how
they do it. Being an engineer or a carpenter is not in itself
enjoyable. But if one does these things a certain way, then they become intrinsically rewarding, worth doing for their own sake. What is the secret of transforming activities so that they are rewarding in and of themselves?
P
ROGRAMMED FOR
C
REATIVITY
When people are asked to choose from a list the best description of how they feel when doing whatever they enjoy doing most—reading, climbing mountains, playing chess, whatever—the answer most frequently chosen is “designing or discovering something new.” At first, it seems strange that dancers, rock climbers, and composers all agree that their most enjoyable experiences resemble a process of discovery. But when we think about it some more, it seems perfectly reasonable that at least some people should enjoy discovering and creating above all else.
To see the logic of this, try a simple thought experiment. Suppose that you want to build an organism, an artificial life form, that will have the best chance of surviving in a complex and unpredictable environment, such as that on Earth. You want to build into this organism some mechanism that will prepare it to confront as many of the sudden dangers and to take advantage of as many of the opportunities that arise as possible. How would you go about doing this? Certainly you would want to design an organism that is basically conservative, one that learns the best solutions from th
e past and keeps repeating them, trying to save energy, to be cautious and go with the tried-and-true patterns of behavior.
But the best solution would also include a relay system in a few organisms that would give a positive reinforcement every time they discovered something new or came up with a novel idea or behavior, whether or not it was immediately useful. It is especially important to make sure that the organism was not rewarded only for useful discoveries, otherwise it would be severely handicapped in meeting the future. For no earthly builder could anticipate the kind of situations the species of new organisms might encounter tomorrow, next year, or in the next decade. So the best program is on
e that makes the organism feel good whenever something new is discovered, regardless of its present usefulness. And this is what seems to have happened with our race through evolution.
By random mutations, some individuals must have developed a nervous system in which the discovery of novelty stimulates the pleasure centers in the brain. Just as some individuals derive a keener pleasure from sex and others from food, so some must have been born who derived a keener pleasure from learning something new. It is possible that children who were more curious ran more risks and so were more likely to die early than their more stolid companions. But it is also probable that those human groups that learned to appreciate the curious children among them, and helped to prote
ct and reward them so that they could grow to maturity and have children of their own, were more successful than groups that ignored the potentially creative in their midst.
If this is true, we are the descendants of ancestors who recognized the importance of novelty, protected those individuals who enjoyed being creative, and learned from them. Because they had among them individuals who enjoyed exploring and inventing, they were better prepared to face the unpredictable conditions that threatened their survival. So we too share this propensity for enjoying whatever we do, provided we can do it in a new way, provided we can discover or design something new in doing it. This is why creativity, no matter in what domain it takes place, is so enjoyable. T
his is why Brenda Milner, among many others, said: “I would say that I am impartial about what is important or great, because every new little discovery, even a tiny one, is exciting at the moment of discovery.”
But this is only part of the story. Another force motivates us, and it is more primitive and more powerful than the urge to create: the force of entropy. This too is a survival mechanism built into our genes by evolution. It gives us pleasure when we are comfortable, when we relax, when we can get away with feeling good without expending energy. If we didn’t have this built-in regulator, we could easily kill ourselves by running ragged and then not having enough reserves of strength, body fat, or nervous energy to face the unexpected.
This is the reason why the urge to relax, to curl up comfortably on the sofa whenever we can get away with it, is so strong. Because this conservative urge is so powerful, for most people “free time” means a chance to wind down, to park the mind in neutral. When there are no external demands, entropy kicks in, and unless we understand what is happening, it takes over our body and our mind.
We are generally torn between two opposite sets of instructions programmed into the brain: the least-effort imperative on one side, and the claims of creativity on the other.
In most individuals entropy seems to be stronger, and they enjoy comfort more than the challenge of discovery. A few, like the ones who tell their stories in this book, are more responsive to the rewards of discovery. But we all respond to both of these rewards; the tendencies toward conserving energy as well as using it constructively are simultaneously part of our inheritance. Which one wins depends not only on our genetic makeup but also presumably on our early experiences. However, unless enough people are motivated by the enjoyment that comes from confronting challenges, by di
scovering new ways of being and doing, there is no evolution of culture, no progress in thought or feeling. It is important, therefore, to understand better what enjoyment consists of and how creativity can produce it.
W
HAT
I
S
E
NJOYMENT
?
In order to answer that question, many years ago I started to study people who seemed to be doing things that they enjoyed but were not rewarded for with money or fame. Chess players, rock climbers, dancers, and composers devoted many hours a week to their avocations. Why were they doing it? It was clear from talking to them that what kept them motivated was the quality of experince they felt when they were involved with the activity. This feeling didn’t come when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol, or when they were consuming the expensive privileges o
f wealth. Rather, it often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person’s capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery. This optimal experience is what I have called
flow
, because many of the respondents described the feeling when things were going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness.
The flow experience was described in almost identical terms regardless of the activity that produced it. Athletes, artists, religious mystics, scientists, and ordinary working people described their most rewarding experiences with very similar words. And the description did not vary much by culture, gender, or age; old and young, rich
and poor, men and women, Americans and Japanese seem to experience enjoyment in the same way, even though they may be doing very different things to attain it. Nine main elements were mentioned over and over again to describe how it feels when an experience is enjoyable.
1.
There are clear goals every step of the way
. In contrast to what happens in everyday life, on the job or at home, where often there are contradictory demands and our purpose is unsure, in flow we always know what needs to be done. The musician knows what notes to play next, the rock climber knows the next moves to make. When a job is enjoyable, it also has clear goals: The surgeon is aware how the incision should proceed moment by moment; the farmer has a plan for how to carry out the planting.
2.
There is immediate feedback to one’s actions
. Again, in contrast to the usual state of affairs, in a flow experience we know how well we are doing. The musician hears right away whether the note played is the one. The rock climber finds out immediately whether the move was correct because he or she is still hanging in there and hasn’t fallen to the bottom of the valley. The surgeon sees there is no blood in the cavity, and the farmer sees the furrows lining up neatly in the field.
3.
There is a balance between challenges and skills
. In flow, we feel that our abilities are well matched to the opportunities for action. In everyday life we sometimes feel that the challenges are too high in relation to our skills, and then we feel frustrated and anxious. Or we feel that our potential is greater than the opportunities to express it, and then we feel bored. Playing tennis or chess against a much better opponent leads to frustration; against a much weaker opponent, to boredom. In a really enjoyable game, the players are balanced on the fine line between boredom and anxiety.
The same is true when work, or a conversation, or a relationship is going well.
4.
Action and awareness are merged
. It is typical of everyday experience that our minds are disjointed from what we do. Sitting in class, students may appear to be paying attention to the teacher, but
they are actually thinking about lunch, or last night’s date. The worker thinks about the weekend; the mother cleaning house is worried about her child; the golfer’s mind is preoccupied with how his swing looks to his friends. In flow, however, our concentration is focused on what we do. One-pointedness of mind is required by the close match between challenges and skills, and it is made possible by the clarity of goals and the constant availability of feedback.
5.
Distractions are excluded from consciousness
. Another typical element of flow is that we are aware only of what is relevant here and now. If the musician thinks of his health or tax problems when playing, he is likely to hit a wrong note. If the surgeon’s mind wanders during an operation, the patient’s life is in danger. Flow is the result of intense concentration on the present, which relieves us of the usual fears that cause depression and anxiety in everyday life.
6.
There is no worry of failure
. While in flow, we are too involved to be concerned with failure. Some people describe it as a feeling of total control; but actually we are not in control, it’s just that the issue does not even come up. If it did, we would not be concentrating totally, because our attention would be split between what we did and the feeling of control. The reason that failure is not an issue is that in flow it is clear what has to be done, and our skills are potentially adequate to the challenges.
7.
Self-consciousness disappears
. In everyday life, we are always monitoring how we appear to other people; we are on the alert to defend ourselves from potential slights and anxious to make a favorable impression. Typically this awareness of self is a burden. In flow we are too involved in what we are doing to care about protecting the ego. Yet after an episode of flow is over, we generally emerge from it with a stronger self-concept; we know that we have succeeded in meeting a difficult challenge. We might even feel that we have stepped out of the boundaries of the ego and have become part,
at least temporarily, of a larger entity. The musician feels at one with the harmony of the cosmos, the athlete moves at
one with the team, the reader of a novel lives for a few hours in a different reality. Paradoxically, the self expands through acts of self-forgetfulness.
8.
The sense of time becomes distorted
. Generally in flow we forget time, and hours may pass by in what seem like a few minutes. Or the opposite happens: A figure skater may report that a quick turn that in real time takes only a second seems to stretch out for ten times as long. In other words, clock time no longer marks equal lengths of experienced time; our sense of how much time passes depends on what we are doing.
9.
The activity becomes autotelic
. Whenever most of these conditions are present, we begin to enjoy whatever it is that produces such an experience. I may be scared of using a computer and learn to do it only because my job depends on it. But as my skills increase, and I recognize what the computer allows me to do, I may begin to enjoy using the computer for its own sake as well. At this point the activity becomes
autotelic
, which is Greek for something that is an end in itself. Some activities such as art, music, and sports are usually autotelic: There is no reason for doing them except
to feel the experience they provide. Most things in life are
exotelic
. We do them not because we enjoy them but in order to get at some later goal. And some activities are both: The violinist gets paid for playing, and the surgeon gets status and good money for operating, as well as getting enjoyment from doing what they do. In many ways, the secret to a happy life is to learn to get flow from as many of the things we have to do as possible. If work and family life become autotelic, then there is nothing wasted in life, and everything we do is worth doing for its own sake.
