Question of the Week - What Makes Some Creative People Rather… Difficult?

This is a particularly relevant question for those working in the ad industry - seeing as it’s the primary refuge for creative

people who have ceased romanticizing starvation and homelessness in the name of their creative venture. 

So yeah, there is more than a handful of advertising creatives who never envisioned themselves designing ads for walk-in bathtubs or attempting to convey the sheer excitement of banking apps. And they may not be thrilled about it.

But that’s not really the reason they can be challenging. It’s much more than that. And just to be clear, we’re not isolating creative people as the sole proprietors of onerous behavior. 

There Are Jerks in Every Line of Work

Take surgeons, for example. Many of them - men and woman alike - have that certain je ne sais quoi. Let’s call it outright over-the-top cocky swagger. But think about it. It makes perfect sense. When you’re getting cut open, do you want the surgeon who’s going into battle for you to be confident and aggressive? Or would you rather have an easy-going, agreeable barista type on the front line? 

It’s not all that different with creative people. Some of their being seemingly difficult is born out of necessity. And some of it is just part of being a creative in a society that doesn’t always embrace it.

Way back in the mid-1990’s, Psychology Today published an article by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People, that highlighted the creative personality. And he’s something of an expert on the topic, seeing as he spent over 30 years researching how creative people live and work. Much like Jane Goodall and her chimps. 

He prefaced the PT article with this: “Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.”

So it sounds like they should be easy to get along with and to understand. But what Csikszenthmihalyi found is that it’s far more complicated than that. 

It turns out that one huge requirement of living as a “creative” is this:

They Must Possess the Ability to Inhabit Opposite States of Being Simultaneously

And at all times.

For example, in their work to bring forth a new reality, creative people alternate between the flightiness of imagination, and the rootedness of that reality. 

And in order to stay innovative, they must also keep one foot forever in the stream of rebellion, and the other in the pool of conservatism. Because it seems that innovation is most easily digested when reckless abandon is mixed with a measure of stability.

In their work, creatives also have to balance being playful and disciplined, extroverted and introverted, humble and proud - this last one being particularly challenging. And since they tend to be open and sensitive, they’re prone to both deep suffering and pain, as well as surges of mind-blowing enjoyment.  

In other words, being a creative simultaneously dwelling in two worlds at all times takes some nerve, some grit and some unorthodox coping skills. And, just as with the aforementioned surgeon, the chutzpah required to navigate this difficult situation is often mislabeled as being difficult, challenging, jerky and a series of other demeaning and incriminating adjectives. 

The biggest difference between the jerky creative and the jerky surgeon though is that almost nobody questions the surgeon. But creatives have to field questions (and criticism) about their work. ALL OF THE TIME. And regardless of the adage, there are plenty of stupid questions. 

So here’s the thing.

Creative People Have to Willing to Take Risks and Break from the Safety of Tradition

Which is usually not a problem since most are, by nature, prone to deep thinking and not terribly compliant. In fact, studies have shown that the part of the brain that lights up for creativity is also the part that controls rumination, pondering and self-awareness. In other words, their brains are created to push, reinvent and question. And it can be irritating for those around them. 

We get it. 

But some of the most creative people in history - Frank Lloyd Wright, Maria Callas and Oscar Wilde, to name a few - were famously difficult to be around. 

Yet it is also highly creative people who incite progress and institute change. So maybe they’re hard to work with. And you might call them difficult. Burdensome. Jerks.

Because they are sometimes. But keep in mind that it can be uncomfortable to be around people who bring dissent and want change. Especially for people who don’t want change. 

Which begs the question, are those who resist change just as difficult? 

Something to consider.