Creativity (27 page)

Again, these trends certainly don’t suggest that creative individuals are inevitably interested and involved in the world around them and that they are willing to pay a heavy price for their beliefs. But these accounts do disprove the often-voiced opposite conclusion, that exceptional artists and scientists are too selfish, too wrapped up in their work, to care much for what is happening in the rest of the world. If anything, it seems that the curiosity and commitment that drive these people to break new ground in their respective fields also direct them to confront the socia
l and political problems that the rest of us are all too content to leave alone.

Beyond Careers

As creative individuals begin to be known and successful, they inevitably take on responsibilities beyond the ones that made them famous, even if these do not involve radical activism. There are two main reasons why this is so, one internal, the other external.

The internal reasons come into play when the creative person runs out of steam or runs out of challenges. For example, it is possible that a particular branch of science or style of art will reach a ceiling or become obsolete. Certainly the great intellectual excitement that blew through physics during the 1920s and 1930s has abated considerably, while other branches of science attract the interest of bright young investigators. Jazz is no longer what it was fifty years ago, the novel is said to be dead, and painting is retro. Those who have dedicated their lives to these endeavors
are tempted to look for greener pastures. Or it may be that the domain is still exciting but the person himself has run out of ideas or feels boxed in by the limitations of his specialty or by the shortcomings of his lab and his tools. When this
happens, the university scientist may look for a deanship, the inventor turns into a consultant, and the artist looks in earnest for a teaching job.

The external pressure to diversify comes from the demands the environment places on the individual. There are many administrative positions in which a respected name is a great asset. Government agencies and private foundations like their executives to have a reputation for creativity, and there are innumerable ad hoc jobs that are attractive. Generally it is not money, or even power, that tempts the creative person to accept such offers, but the feeling that there is something important that needs to be done and that he or she is the one who can do it.

Most of the women scientists in our sample—Margaret Butler, Rosalyn Yalow, Vera Rubin, Isabella Karle—devote a great deal of their time to traveling around the country and lecturing high school girls about the importance of taking math courses before it is too late, before they realize, in college, that they would like to major in science but can’t because they don’t know enough math. The lives of many bright women are blighted, they feel, because of this lack of foresight. All four are also involved in various scientific associations, especially those catering to women scientis
ts. Butler is active in local politics, and Yalow lectures extensively about radiation safety.

Creative scientists are sooner or later drawn into the politics and the administration of science, and if they are any good at it, they will have a second or third career “doing God’s work” rather than their own. Manfred Eigen still runs his huge laboratory at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, where he hopes to demonstrate the processes of selection in inorganic molecules—thereby showing how evolution proceeded even before life appeared on our planet. But he spends more and more time on such activities as awarding grants and fellowships on behalf of the German Science Foundation
and traveling to official conferences—as well as playing the piano.

Another German scientist, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, had a long and distinguished teaching and research career before he switched, in the 1950s, to building and directing the first European nuclear research reactor in Grenoble. He retired from that to accept the presidency of the
Vorschungsgemeinshaft
, the equivalent of our National Science Foundation. In this job he lobbied government officials and politicians on behalf of research programs, supervised the administration of
grants and fellowships, and struggled with the media to preserve a positive image of science. When he retired again, he started writing best-selling cookbooks, while continuing informally his role as a wise old man of science, contributing articles and attending conferences.

It would be easy to believe that at least artists, musicians, and writers may be left alone to follow their inspiration and to work in the solitude of their studio. But such is not the case. Robertson Davies describes his current activities, showing both the internal and external forces that distract him from writing:

Davies’s account highlights another task that creative individuals begin to turn to after they become successful: to preserve the record of their lives. Letters have to be sorted and labeled for the archives, papers collected and annotated, paintings collected in museums, memories recorded in biographies. When poets, musicians, and artists become well known they are increasingly asked to sit on award
and fellowship committees. Their opinion is asked in the matter of grants, and journalists call to find out what their thoughts are on religion, sex, and politics. As Davies says:

Of course, this kind of expectation of universal knowledge, which ends up diluting and cheapening the person’s unique vision and genuine expertise, does not afflict writers only. The same idea is expressed by the physicist Eugene Wigner:

The Question of Succession

For those who have built an institution during their lifetime, one of the consuming concerns becomes the issue of succession. Who will lead the company? Who will direct the laboratory after the present chief retires? Will the institution survive the departure of the person who devoted his or her life to it? These questions become extremely important in later life. Few of these individuals would subscribe to the resigned quip of the Marquise de Pompadour: “After us, the flood.”

Robert Galvin spent most of his last three years as CEO of Motorola making sure that the “right” person would be in line to succeed when it was time for him to retire. A wrong choice would have meant jeopardizing the future of a dynamic, prosperous company employing tens of thousands of workers, which he had spent his life energies strengthening.

Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann started her public opinion polling institute in 1945, right after the end of World War II. She expanded it from a husband-and-wife operation into one of the largest and most respected firms of its kind, employing several hundred full-time and thousands of part-time workers. Much of the institute’s success is due to her personal contacts among German social and political leaders, to her breakthroughs in sampling methodology, and to her drive. Understandably, now that she is in her seventies, she is worried about the future of her creation. Who, among t
hose who work for her, is most likely to preserve the company’s prestige and success?

George Klein, who has built up a large laboratory for tumor cell research at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is still far from retirement, but he too spends increasing time debating which of the five dozen or so scientists working for him should be groomed to take over the lab. A person has to be intellectually brilliant, fiscally astute, and reasonably unselfish in order to head a lab successfully. If for instance Klein promotes a successor who is too concerned with his or her own career to the point of exploiting the ideas of the rest of the staff, he or she is likely to a
lienate the best researchers, who will then leave and go work somewhere else. Institutions are fragile things. And when they are built around a creative person, their survival is more threatened than usual.

The Matter of Time

One thing such people don’t have too much of is time on their hands. It is difficult to imagine any of them being bored, or spending even a few minutes doing something they don’t believe is worthwhile. Eva Zeisel says: “When some people at my age ask me what to do, I say, ‘You must have an obsession.’ You must always have too little time instead of too much.” Bradley Smith is convinced that one is forced to become creative in order to avoid repetition and boredom. “You do not have time. The input is coming in all of the time. You do not have time to get bored.”

Now in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, they may lack the fiery ambition of earlier years, but they are just as focused, efficient, and committed as before. “Come Friday,” says John Hope Franklin with a chuckle, “I also say ‘Thank God it’s Friday,’ because then I look forward to two uninterrupted days of work at home.” In one fashion or another, their work—the focused application of all of their
skills to a worthy, self-chosen goal—continues until they die or are incapacitated. But then why call what they are doing work? It may just as easily be called play.

The majority of people in every culture invest their lives in projects that are defined by their society. They pay attention to what others pay attention to, they experience what others experience. They go to school and learn what should be learned; they work at whatever job is available; they marry and have children according to the local customs. It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. Would it be possible to have a stable, predictable life if most people were not conformists? If we couldn’t count on plumbers doing their jobs, teachers teaching, and doctors abidin
g by the rules of the medical profession? At the same time, a culture can evolve only if there are a few souls who do not play by the usual rules. The men and women we studied made up their rules as they went along, combining luck with the singleness of their purpose, until they were able to fashion a “life theme” that expressed their unique vision while also allowing them to make a living.

T
HE
S
LINGS AND
A
RROWS OF
F
ATE

As is obvious by now, creative people are certainly not immune to the disappointments and tragedies that cast shadows on the lives of everyone else. They are fortunate, however, to have a calling that makes it possible for them to dwell as little as possible on what might have been and go on with their lives.

Occasionally one of the interviewees would break down in tears when talking about the death of a parent or spouse. In a few cases, it was evident that deep emotional scars were left by the worst blow an adult can suffer—the death of a child. These and many lesser tragedies—wars, imprisonment, failures, financial troubles—were amply present in the histories of these people. But the hurt did not turn into an emotional swamp in which they foundered; instead, it helped to strengthen their resolve.

Some of the most permanent wounds were inflicted by professional mentors. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar still remembers the humiliation he felt sixty years ago when the great astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington made light of Chandrasekhar’s scientific prospects. Frank Offner still smarts from the petty jealousy of one of his gradu
ate school supervisors who discouraged him from taking advantage of early career opportunities and blackened his reputation behind his back.

The ability of these people to minimize obstacles is well illustrated in how the women responded to our persistent queries about the difficulties they encountered, as women, in their careers. Most of them denied that sex bias or the burden of role conflict produced by dual expectations had any great negative effect on their lives. The general attitude seemed to be “So what else is new?” and “Let’s get on with what needs to be done.” Not that these women are unaware of the difficulties women face in many careers. In fact, they could be very passionate in decrying the special bu
rdens of women. But they just didn’t see that the issues were relevant to their own case. Vera Rubin’s answer is typical: