Personally, I am fairly sure that creative people see the world differently - sometimes in fairly fundamental ways – but I don’t think that necessarily qualifies you as being nuts. I think it has more to do with having a fresh perspective; and, in many cases, actually processing ideas in ways that aren’t common (or are less common than what is generally regarded as being the norm). Of course, where many people are concerned, merely not being conventional is cause for suspicion just in itself—with being labeled as crazy being just a small step beyond that.
Conformity comes into play here. The pressure to conform to the cultural norm is quite extraordinary, to the extent that I feel many people who privately question the system choose to keep silent because of the perceived, and sometimes very real, consequences. In short, there are more “crazies” out there than is generally admitted.
Shelly Carson, a Harvard psychologist and author of Your Creative Brain, has a theory that creativity and mental illness share a process called “cognitive disinhibition.” That essentially means that you fail to keep useless data, images, or ideas out of concious awareness. This can make schizo personalities delusional—or creative minds more inspired.
Here, I have to question what is “useless data.” Indeed the ability to link and manipulate data, and otherwise make connections which are less than obvious, strikes me as being a major component of an original first class mind.
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