Creativity Guru Dr. James Kaufman | This Past Weekend #260
Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts http://bit.ly/ThisPastWeekend_ James Kaufman https://twitter.com/JamesKaufman ----------------------------------------------------------- This episode brought to you by… Betterhelp Visit https://betterhelp.com/theo ----------------------------------------------------------- Find Theo Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEKV_MOhwZ7OEcgFyLKilw ----------------------------------------------------------- Producer Nick https://instagram.com/realnickdavis ----------------------------------------------------------- Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunn ----------------------------------------------------------- Gunt Squad www.patreon.com/theovon Name Aaron Rasche Action Jackson Adam White Alex Bmayer Alex Hitchins Alex Person Alex Petralia Amy Love Andrew Valish Anthony Holcombe Ashley Konicki Audrey Hodge Ayako Akiyama Ben Deignan Ben in thar.. Benjamin Streit Brandon Woolsey Brian meek Christopher Becking Christopher Burton Cody Anderson Cody Kenyon Cody Marsh Crystal David Christopher Dentist the menace Dionne Enoch Dusty Baker Eric Tobey Gillian Neale Ginger Levesque Greg Salazar Gunt Squad Gary J Garcia Jamaica Taylor James Briscoe James Hunter James Schneider Jameson Flood Jayme Sta Jeremy Weiner Joakim Joaquin Rodriguez Joe Dunn Joey Piemonte Jon Blowers Jon Ross Jordan Josh Nemeyer Joy Hammonds Julie Ogden Justin Doerr Kyle Baker Lacey Ann Lawrence Abinosa Lea Rashka Leighton Fields LJ Logan Yakemchuk Madeline Matthews Matt Nichols Mike Mikocic Mike Nucci Mona McCune myinitialsareOKbutimnot Nick Roma Noah Bissell NYCWendy1 Passenger Shaming Qie Jenkins Ruben Prado Ryan Hawkins Sagar Jha Scott Turnbull Shane Pacheco Shona MacArthur Stephen Trottier Suzanne O'Reilly Tanner Marvel Taryn Feingold Theo Wren Thomas Adair Tim Greener Timothy Eyerman Tito Liebowitz Tom Cook Tom Kostya Tugzy Mills Tyler Harrington (TJ) Vanessa Amaya Vince Gonsalves Vincent Gil William Reid Peters Yvonne Zeke HarrisSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Want to let you guys know that I will be performing March 7th at the Castle Theater in Maui, Hawaii or Kahului.
Those tickets will go on sale Tuesday, February 11th at 10 a.m.
Hawaiian time.
So Aloha Mahalo Gangalo.
I'm really excited about that.
I need a vacation.
Today's guest is really the Patrick Mahomes of Creativity.
He's a professor at the University of Connecticut.
He's written countless books, including Creativity 101.
It is Professor James Kaufman.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Of course, the boss is somebody who has like a sharp object.
I remember I was getting like some back stuff done, and guy's like a needle this big, and he starts deciding to talk politics.
I'm just like, I'm nodding and smiling at everything he says.
I don't care what he said, you know?
I agree.
All the way in my right now, you could be saying anything you want, and as long as you have like a blade this big, I'm on your side.
Yeah.
Dr. James Kaufman, who wrote the, who really is one of the, I mean, you're kind of like a little bit of the Sacagawea of creativity, kind of the white male Sacagawea in a way.
I've never been called that.
You're like Louis Ancliffe.
Some might say Forrest Gump.
Okay, I'll do that.
But I've been very lucky.
I've gotten to ask a whole lot of interesting questions, and it's a field that's just starting to kind of take off, and it sounds kind of silly, the idea of studying creativity.
Yeah.
But some of this stuff's really intuitive, and some of it not necessarily what you'd think.
When you say it's a field that's just starting to take off, like, because recently I was actually talking to my niece and I said, imagination, right?
And she goes, what is it?
Is it on your phone?
And she thought it was an app.
And it shook me to my core.
I was like, oh, man, it made me think like, oh, creativity is dying.
You know, that it's not like a new, that there's nothing really new there.
It's not like a, you know, like a seeded forest as much as maybe I used to think it was.
Or is it that we're just being creative in different ways?
Because on one hand, yeah, probably if you gave your niece, like, did you ever play with those old refrigerator boxes or like just a huge Noah's Ark?
Amistad or something?
Like on one hand, yeah, probably if you gave her, hey, here's this huge cardboard box, do what you want.
So what?
Why are you giving this to me?
But she might also be able to, I mean, make a video, do any of this stuff using the phone.
Right.
And to me, it's all that do you use to consume or create?
And there's nothing wrong with consuming.
I mean, I love watching stuff and listening to stuff.
But if you're also using it to create, I feel like the forest isn't quite dead yet.
Yeah, I worry sometimes that, I mean, especially with the phone.
I mean, even with, you know, mine is an example of just the alarm going off that like.
There's so many interruptions these days, specifically with my phone, to how much it interrupts my thought processes.
You know, and even my sleep, it interrupts every process, it seems like there's a call, there's an email, there's a, I mean, it definitely seems like these days there's a lot more interruptions, whereas creativity needs more of like a bed to kind of like, you know, creativity, it seems like you need some time.
You got to get tangled up in the sheets, you know?
Oh, yeah.
It's what we sometimes call flow, that moment when you are creating and you're engaged and it's like you forget where you are.
And that's when like five hours pass and you're like, I haven't eaten for the entire day.
And of course, if the phone buzzes, that takes you out of it.
It's why when I'm trying to actively write and do something where I'm actually using like full brain, turn off phone, sometimes even disable Wi-Fi.
And I can't get away with it for too long.
I mean, we live in a world where we get 400 emails a minute and I got two kids.
Oh, yeah.
We have a question actually that came in right here.
We'll put this question in.
Hi, Theo.
Hi, James.
My name's Max, and I was wondering if Dr. Kaufman could maybe go into a little bit of detail about what a flow state is and maybe ways to achieve them.
Because I've heard a lot about them, but sometimes I just have a bit of trouble achieving that flow state.
So if you could expand, that would be great.
Thank you.
A lot of flow state junkies out there.
You know, people want that flow state.
It's an intoxicating feeling.
People who, I mean, you can get it other ways than just creating.
A lot of people who are into like mountain climbing or running, the runner is high.
It's not horribly different.
The best way to enter flow is to do something creative that's a little bit challenging.
If it's too hard, you're just going to go, screw it.
I can't do this.
And if it's something that's routine or too easy, it's going to be simple.
Like if you're playing the piano and you kind of play, you know, and if you're doing chopsticks, you're not going to.
You're not invested.
But then it might say, okay, Theo, here's this like rock mononoff symphony or something, play it.
You're not going to know what to do.
You're not going to enter flow.
I mean, you might be able to get a melody, but it's not going to connect with you.
It's always that slight challenge.
And as you get better and you kind of keep matching it, you've got to up the challenge.
It has to be something that you care about, that you're passionate about.
I mean, one of the first things that I tell my students is, what are you interested in?
Like, forgetting about the word creativity.
The word creativity Freaks people out.
I teach a class, several classes on creativity.
And one of the things I do is I have them do this big creative project.
And that's it in terms of the rules.
You got some students, they're just thrilled.
They're running with it.
And like by the third day, they're, oh man, I could do this and this.
And there are other students who are terrified.
Like if the assignment was cut off your little finger, they would have gone that option.
Wow.
Because that's more definite.
That's more obvious.
Yeah.
But be creative.
It can mean anything.
And people sometimes think, well, I'm not creative.
And then they just shut it off.
And yet you start talking.
Okay, well, what are you interested in?
What do you like doing?
And then you work on that.
You play from that.
Okay.
And you just keep going in that passion, in that what are you interested in?
It doesn't mean you're going to be necessarily good at it, but creativity isn't just about the outcome.
It isn't just about reaching a certain level of creativity.
I mean, that's always great.
But it's not always about creating something.
Certainly, when you first start off, it can just be in your head.
It can be an idea.
As long as it has some type of meaning to you.
Like, if it's just a random thought, okay, no.
But let's say, I mean, okay.
Actually, if I could ask you, like, how do you get, like for your last comedy special, like, how are you writing it?
What was your process?
Yeah, the process is, you know, I take things from life that I thought were funny or things that made me laugh.
And then, you know, I started to expound on them on stage.
Then I would write them down into Word documents and sometimes go back and read through the document when I was feeling pretty good and like add in some stuff that I thought was funny or add in things I wanted to try.
And then I would go back on stage, do it again, and just kind of keep kind of swimming in that circle until I felt like it was just kind of done.
At a certain point, my brain, I choose not to work on things anymore because it's just like, to me, they're done.
There's nothing else.
There could be a lot more to do if I were somebody else, but for me, it's like this is as far as this bit or this area or this story or world is going to go.
So I think that was kind of the process.
I think, is that a process?
Yeah, yeah.
And one way of thinking about it is that all the initial stuff, the things that you're remembering happening that were funny, even the stuff before you're remembering it when it's happening, where maybe it's something funny you said or you saw, or you're thinking, well, if that had happened, it would have been funny.
And then you're remembering it three days later.
Some of that stuff is going to stay in your mind and you're going to develop it and you'll try it out.
Other stuff will be there and you'll think about it and you'll consider it and there's not funny enough.
Not enough I can do with that.
Yeah, it's not enough for me.
Sometimes it's like it's not creative enough for me, I feel like.
Like somebody else, oh, it might be good for them, but this doesn't fit maybe exactly my tastes, you know, for what I find to be funny.
Like when you were first starting out, you probably, I mean, if you were like me or anybody, your hit ratio wasn't as good.
Yeah.
You know, so you just, okay, well, I bet that could be funny.
And maybe you're trying it out and you learn, okay, this works, this doesn't, or this could really work.
That process, like from like what's up here in your head to what you're actually saying when you share it with another person, that's kind of like this personal creativity idea.
And that's something that everybody else can theoretically think it sucks.
It's hopefully you get better and you can connect with other people because that's so much of what creativity is about.
Where when you're on stage, there's an audience and it's almost interactive and you're reading it, then it gets to be what we might call everyday creativity, but at your point, much higher.
Expert level creativity, professional.
Refined, for sure.
I think that's because you've done it so many times and you kind of are familiar with a little bit of the dance, you know, yeah, once you get out there with the audience, you know, yeah, it's funny, you can almost, it's almost like playing an instrument after a while.
You know, it's like, okay, these are the notes that I know and this is the reaction and it's going to become sort of this circle.
And it frees you up to try more things.
Because like you know, okay, this is the stuff that I'll set the table with, you know, while I'm working on it.
And that some of you can almost go on autopilot while your brain's going ahead, able to work in something, work in an audience reaction.
Yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah, it's like you're almost like on, like in Tesla, whenever you can just be cruising, you know, and sometimes you can just touch the wheel every now and then, you know?
Like you can, yeah, it's like you're driving, but every now and then you can, it's almost like you can go off course without even, but you're staying on course a little bit, you know, at the same time, once you get the kind of the cruise control of the of the of your set, you know.
Is it hard to be creative?
Like, because I'm thinking like sometimes on stage, I find easier opportunities to be creative.
I don't know if it's because of the fear, how my day is going, how I'm feeling, my comfort level, fear even.
Is it harder to be creative from a place of fear?
It's a good question.
So if you look at, okay, what type of emotion does your creativity come from?
A lot depends on the type of creativity.
So let's say that you're feeling good.
You're more likely to get the initial boost.
So the first minute or two, you're going to come up with more ideas.
But you're going to be okay with it a little earlier.
So whether it's on stage in the moment or whether you're still kind of brainstorming, if you're feeling happy or just excited or just in a good mood, it'll be good at first, but then it'd be like, okay, that was good.
If you're upset, whether it's sadness, could be anger, fear, It'll take you longer to kick in.
But you won't get satisfied as easily, and you're going to keep plugging away.
And so much is going to depend on what your goal is.
Like if you're aiming to get a routine that is just as good as it can get and you're still exploring it and it's worth, okay, I'm going to take eight minutes doing this bit and some of it's going to be a little bit slow.
And maybe there'll be a moment when I'm worried about losing the audience, but I'm going to get something that I can really work with and it'll be better and connect better.
Then fear or anger or just kind of just being bummed, that's okay.
If you're, okay, I got a five-minute set.
I just got to go out.
Boom, done.
Happier is probably better.
Right, I see.
So if it's long term, a fear and anger can almost drive you harder to get, to stay resilient, to find a place, to find more opportunity for creativity.
Although longer term, it's a question mark.
In that one of the things that creativity is so good at is it helps us cope with these type of negative emotions.
Yeah, I've noticed that sometimes I'll be in a bad mood and my brain will think of something that's kind of funny for me and then I will feel better.
You know, it's almost like it's like a gift or something that my brain gave me like to help out, you know?
It really is.
And people, like we have this image or stereotype of, oh, creative people are crazy or, you know, this image of the mad genius or whatever.
I mean, whether or not that's true.
And then that's something that like scientists enjoy arguing about.
We can use our creativity to, if we are feeling depressed, anxious.
Creativity can distract us, which can be amazing.
Creativity can help us kind of organize our thoughts.
There's this idea called cognitive load, which is kind of a weird term.
But it's just how much crap is upstairs in your head.
Oh, God.
And you know, you always have those kind of like this monologue and this recurring thought and all this stuff.
Yeah.
It's like having browsers open on a computer kind of.
Yeah.
You got too much open.
I mean, just like a computer, your brain's like, okay, I'm still working on this.
I'm still working on this.
I'm still worried about this.
What creativity can do is that it can connect a lot of this stuff into a narrative, into a story.
It's why people who journal or blog, they're actually better off physically and mentally.
Because they get a lot of it out.
Yeah.
It doesn't necessarily mean you want to be like exposing your heart and these are my worst fears.
Like Shakespearean type of stuff.
Yeah.
Because then you also run the risk of you're almost like ruminating and overthinking and then you end up kind of getting sucked into this.
It's kind of like after a breakup, a really bad breakup.
You want to allow yourself time to just be able to just curse and get rid of it.
But if it's six months later and you're still, this was her cell phone number and all that.
Yeah, standing on her porch petting a cat.
That's what I did once.
Six months later?
Shoo.
I don't even know how long later.
I don't even want to think about it.
I shouldn't have brought it up.
But yeah, it's at that point you're not, yeah, you're just ruminating on it.
It's going to be hard for anything new to.
Is it hard for new...
Like, is there a best time to create, like...
For new things to come out of us, you know?
I mean, there's a lot of definitions, it seems like.
The two things that we agree on pretty well.
One is exactly that.
It has to be something new.
The other one is it has to be task appropriate.
That doesn't mean socially appropriate.
That does not mean inoffensive or anything.
But it's that if you want to make a creative meal, then great.
You can switch out ingredients, whatever, but it has to be something that you could eat.
You decide, I'm going to make lasagna, but what would happen if I used shattered glass instead of cheese?
That's new.
That's really new.
Not creative.
Yeah, it's not fair to somebody.
Yeah.
And you wouldn't even say, oh, that's a lasagna.
That's just...
That's glass bucket.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nice try.
I mean, if it were art that we're doing, but if we have to eat, then you can't, that's not very creative.
What's neat about comedy is that what's the task?
I mean, it's make somebody laugh.
Right.
Make somebody laugh, make somebody think, make somebody feel.
I think it's expanding a little more these days into also like make somebody feel almost sometimes.
I think some of our comedians have become also, I feel like you'll get more people, like you also get applause breaks for people being able to make people feel.
I think it's always been think and laugh.
But I think there's a little bit of feeling in there these days as well.
Yeah, I find when I look back on my own life, because the only perception I have fully is my own.
And so when I look back, I find I used creativity a lot of times as not like a defense mechanism, but like as a way.
Like we didn't have a lot growing up, so I was like, oh, well, I need to always be able to think or do something or say something that someone else isn't going to do.
It was like almost like a currency in a way.
It was like, if I can have creativity, that can be a currency.
Because like the, does that make any sense?
Oh, completely.
If you look at so much of the stuff that we value as an education system, as if we're hiring people, you know, we look at test scores and grades and all this stuff, socioeconomic status plays a role in that.
Because if you don't have access to books or a computer, I mean, it's harder.
It's not true of creativity.
Anybody can be creative.
It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.
Does it help if you're poor, though?
I feel like if you have everything, then you don't need to make anything up.
It's one of those questions.
If you're asking me as like the scientist, then I'd have to go, well, we haven't studied that enough.
If you're asking me as a human being, yeah.
I think it helps.
I think that so much of creativity comes out of necessity.
I mean, if you always are cooked dinner and you never have to cook, you're not going to figure out creative ways to cook or creative ways to, okay, I've got to make $8 last for the next two days for dinner.
Or to use ingredients too.
I remember making my mom stuff sometimes.
We didn't have something.
I would use something else.
You know, we don't have flour.
I'll use this.
I'll use Epsom salts.
You know, it's like change it up.
Just as a kid, you're thinking, oh, whatever looks the same.
So then, yeah, you might get a butt whooping.
You know, you might get beaten down, but at least you start to create this world in your head where you're like, oh, this could be this.
A butterfly could be like a color hawk or something.
Here's some guy right here.
He's got an issue.
Yeah.
So, Dr. James, it's because of Nate from New Orleans.
Out here bouncing bums and smoking cigarettes in North Hollywood.
My question is to both of you.
Y'all think there's a correlation between creativity and comfort?
Like, the more uncomfortable you are, the more creative you got to be to find that comfort?
I know Theo and Mark Norman talked about it a little last week on the podcast, and I'd like to get your opinion on that.
Thanks, bro.
Who the heck?
Gang, gang.
Gang, Nate.
Dang.
God, I hope he's okay.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, so yeah, is there a correlation between creativity and comfort?
Certainly, if we look at, okay, how people think creatively, there's a couple of different aspects of it.
One of the real big ones is idea generation, getting your ideas.
I think if you're too comfortable, you're not going to be getting a lot of ideas.
It's the same way that, like if you look at, okay, well, how can you be more creative?
If you are paralyzed by anxiety, that's not good.
But a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of that just slight discomfort, I mean, it makes you think of more ideas, makes you think of more solutions.
You can't find something to solve if you have, if everything in your life is perfect.
And I think that there are other parts.
So if you're doing revision, if you're testing out material, not in front of a live audience, but for a friendly audience, then there are times when, okay, you may want to just be comfortable and I want to sound the best.
Or if you're filming something.
But for the raw generation, for the brainstorm, you kind of want that little bit of grittiness, that discomfort, that...
Like if I had to, you know, if I was in a cave or something, like creative, like creativity would be kept in like kind of a magic place, it seems like.
I mean, we need a reason to do stuff.
And it's a perfectly good reason to entertain, but it's also to solve a problem, to figure it out.
You want something you can't get.
It's going back to the stuff we were talking about.
Well, if you're growing up poor and without resources, you got to be creative.
Yeah, you got to be creative.
I was thinking yesterday, I was talking to a friend and thinking about living in a city.
It limits even the tall buildings and everything.
And being in more of traffic.
And it limits even just what my view is constantly.
I can't even see that far.
And I can't even, you know, like the things I do see, it's a lot more cars and buildings than growing up in a more of a rural area where you could see like an open field where it's like, oh, I could put something in that field.
Like your brain has time to like, you know, there just seems like there's more of a canvas for your play, for your brain to play with growing up in areas where there's more space sometimes, physical space.
But then I guess that's not necessarily true because you could be a great artist that comes out of New York City.
And it's one of those, there's always good things and bad things.
Like in LA, you're surrounded by a network of people.
Like if you want to make it an entertainment, you're going to be in LA.
Maybe New York is a couple of places and you have all these resources.
All the idea of we co-create so often and you need to, yes, we have technology and you can Skype and Zoom, but just being in the room and talking.
And if you're in Montana, it's harder to be in the room.
Yet you're also right in that nature can inspire, beauty inspires us, and just having more of a canvas, having more of something to fill up.
And if you can get that type of network, even not at a professional level, but if you are wherever you are and you have the people you can, whether it's write with or try business with or joke around with, as long as you have that connection with people, it should be okay.
Do you feel as like we move away, I was thinking like, do you feel like as we move away from even like for children, like we move away from like writing with our hands and into, you know, pressing buttons on the computer to write, do you feel like that, like we might be going through like a real,
I wonder what that effect that has on our creative psyche or the creative like template that we've grown up with, you know, like to write or to use our hands to create more, use more clay, whereas now we use more, you might be able to do something 3D design or digital design.
I definitely think we're losing something.
I think we're gaining stuff because I think technology can do amazing stuff, but I also think there's something about being creative with your hands.
You know, whether it's Legos, you know, or clay or just making a styrofoam cup, for God's sakes, just anything that you can do stuff with, paperclips, That has less of an intuitive appeal.
I mean, now there's an app that you can undoubtedly link paperclips together, and it doesn't make it bad, it's just different.
Yeah, it's just different.
And I wonder what that effect is on us.
Like, does it affect the fact that if I'm not using my motor skills attached, does it start to weaken like a part of me where one day my, you know, my create, whatever the core of my creativity is inside of me will just be like an appendix or something in your body that you don't need?
You know, it just makes me wonder sometimes.
I can see certain parts of it.
It's the same, like with Google and other search engines, there's certain parts of our critical thinking and certain parts of our long-term memory that are kind of getting worse.
Is that bad?
It's not good.
We need to improve, for example, how to learn how to figure out what sources are good.
Right.
So if we're trying to figure out, you know, who is the 17th president of the United States and we type it in, okay, boom, we don't have to remember that anymore.
Right.
But we also got to figure out, okay, well, is this a good source for that?
If it's just who's president, but let's say it's, you know, even what's a good Mexican restaurant around here?
Right.
Well, was this something that was just being placed by the company that owns it?
And we have to build up different skills.
Sometimes we are, sometimes we're not.
I mean, with social media, all this technology stuff, all of a sudden we can reach people in a way we were never able to do.
I mean, if you were a stand-up comedian in the 40s and 50s, then yeah, you know, you'd be going from club to club.
But if you weren't working with one of the five or six big clubs, which meant networking connection, if you didn't impress the one or two or three studio executives who would put you in a film, or they didn't have that many records, but have you cut a record, you were probably on the outside looking in.
Nowadays you can work and you can connect with people and you can communicate directly to an audience.
And I think that can be great.
I think it can also be a little scary.
Yeah, so the ability to connect creatively, the ability to share creativity and get it out there is really at an unprecedented space.
It's like kind of at an unprecedented level.
Like even SoundCloud, for example, like SoundCloud is now a place where, you know, where, you know, rappers and not even good rappers can interact with each other constantly.
But it's like a place where everybody can be a musician.
But does that mean that, I wonder, are we really creating better musicians or do we just have that everybody is a musician now?
You know, even if it's bad, like, is it just, you know, like sometimes you create a stable and just because everybody can now have a horse doesn't mean that any of these horse, you know, it just means everybody has a horse.
You still might not.
You're not ready to win a race.
Yeah.
Everybody's not ready to race, really.
To me, the big danger is getting on stage too early because then you're going to get feedback and sometimes that's great.
But it's a question of can you handle having a thousand people say you suck?
Right.
Because some people are going to go, okay, I'm not a good rapper.
I'm not funny and just give up.
Other people are going to go, screw you.
I'm going to make you laugh.
I'm going to make you like this song.
If you're an adult, that's one thing.
But if you're 12, how many 12-year-olds have the resiliency to, you know, you suck, you suck, or any of that stuff?
Yeah, it's pretty wild because it used to be like if you shared a talent, it was a couple people at your school, you know, who saw it and you saw their faces and the teacher made them apologize to you if they made fun of you.
And it was pretty much, it was a world that you could still kind of manage a little bit.
You could say to your mom, you know, oh, Tommy, you didn't like what I did, you know, and his mom, you know, and his mom could call your mom or whatever.
But now you walk out and you put it out there and, you know, Larry, you know, Larry Apple Bomb 7000 hits you up and he's like, you're going to hell or something.
You didn't even, and your music wasn't even about hell.
And you're like, jeepers, man.
And it's always there.
And it's always there, yeah.
I mean, you release a song or a routine when you're 14 and then you're 25 trying to do it and it's still there.
Yeah.
Some guy's like, oh, hey, remember I wrote 10 years ago.
I just wanted to remind you again that you suck.
And you're like, dang, bro.
I mean, I was publishing these little tiny zines, you know, like hand-cranked out in people's garages somewhere, like comedy or stories or horror fiction back when I was in my teens.
Thank God those are all long gone.
I mean, they're like lining bird cages and they're, I mean, hopefully just in a compost heap somewhere.
If I was having somebody who, hey, look, you wrote this when you were 15, oh, God, I would probably never write again.
It's true, huh?
It's interesting in the memory, the memory of the internet, what's available, like the vault that's there.
Yeah, I wonder sometimes, like, I do notice that it is tougher to be creative.
I feel like the more comfortable that you get.
I feel like your brain just, not your brain, but I don't know.
It's just there's something more romantic or more like inspirational about having to achieve something.
Even just in the past year of my own life and having some more success, it's been, for one, I've been tired, but for two, I've been, sometimes I'm like, man, am I, it really challenges, makes me wonder how am I still going to manage my creativity and still make sure that I stay creative because that's the thing that I love the most about anything was like making a joke or making like a joke was always if it was if it was in the moment you know it was like oh that's something that's unprecedented you know it's just here and it's there and it's done and
it's gone and we can never go back to that exact moment which is the one thing that I loved about com that I love about comedy the most is just that it's just that split second that's that spark Of when a joke happens and you just can't replicate it.
Let me ask you a question.
Why do you love comedy?
What makes you love comedy?
What makes you want to do another routine, movie special?
Oh, excuse me.
Sorry.
Sorry to interrupt the episode.
I just had a couple of chips.
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I think surprise, the element of surprise, I think, the fact that people don't know what's going to happen and that you know.
So I think there's probably some control maybe in there, something.
And just getting to make people feel good.
Just knowing that people are going to like they don't know, but they're really going to have fun.
Let's say that you have two gigs.
Your next Netflix special, and they're paying you three times as much.
And small comedy club that, you know, you're getting barely enough to cover your gas money.
Do you prepare differently for them?
Yeah.
How?
If I may, how?
Yeah, prepare differently.
Like, I mean, for the Netflix special, I'll probably really rehearse and go through things, see what I'm going to wear, you know, have a little bit more of a production, you know, mindset.
Whereas the other one, I'll just make sure that I get there a few minutes before I have to go on stage.
Are you more likely to experiment with either one in what you say, what you try out?
Yeah, probably more likely to experiment at the smaller venue club.
I mean, the way that both from the research, but also kind of just as a human being.
As long as you keep varying, you're going to keep that passion.
You're going to keep the creative need because you're going to still have that discomfort.
You're going to still have that feeling of, okay.
Because like, I mean, I know you just, I know, I know you just got signed not just to the new Chris Pratt movie and all this stuff.
And like, that's a certain both level of exposure, but less freedom.
But as long as you make sure, and I know you're going to, that you still have these places where you have that freedom, you do, and you do both, obviously.
Just keep it even.
And as long as you don't give this up, you're not going to lose it.
It's when people don't do this.
And it's hard when this thing is paying so much money.
And this is the thing that everybody's watching and seeing.
And maybe, you know, 50 people are seeing this, 500,000 are seeing this.
It's tempting.
Okay, I want to do 95% of this.
As long as you don't get this up.
And that's the stuff that got you in the first place.
That's where you're still going to be.
Okay, I want to try something new.
I want to surprise these people.
Right.
In a way that, I mean, you know.
Yeah, no, I love that.
Yeah, because it's almost, yeah, I love that.
I think that's perfect.
It's like so funny because it's just some of the exact same stuff I need to hear right now.
And here's another white guy with a question here.
Hey yo, what's up, Nick?
This is Nick from Long Beach, California.
I've got a question for the professor coming in today.
So I'm a musician and I have been for most of my life.
Music has always flowed out of me really easily.
I would stay up late until, you know, 2, 3, 4 in the morning just writing and composing.
But when I hit about 28 and I'm 30 now, that kind of stopped.
Real life started to get in the way and that creative flow drained out of me and I don't know where to find it again.
I'm sure there's some kind of chemical reason or cause for that, but I just wanted to know if that's common and what I can do to fix or combat that.
Gang, gang.
Gang, bro.
That's a great question, huh?
That's a great question.
It's a vulnerable question, too.
Thanks, Nick.
And I mean, it's something I can identify with.
I mean, I always wanted to be a writer, and I wrote plays, and I kept doing that through grad school when you're not really supposed to.
Like a playwright?
Yeah.
I've been lucky.
I mean, I had a lot of my short plays, produced play says.
I mean, nothing anybody would have heard of.
Right.
But a playwright, Yeah, it's like, how do you even, unless you're going to ancient Rome or like, you know, Stratford on Avon, where are you even going to get a gig?
And so I did what, you know, my day job, which thankfully I ended up loving.
But once I got the full-time job, I got married, you know, I got kids.
I stopped writing plays for about 14, 15 years.
I've only recently tried to get back into it.
I mean, a lot of it is at a certain point, your real life starts creeping in on you.
You have to make a living.
You have to fulfill certain obligations.
You have people who depend on you all of a sudden.
I mean, if it's just you and you're single, you have no kids, there's a certain freedom.
I have two boys.
I adore them, you know, but if I were to suddenly quit my job, that's not just me.
Right.
Not just affecting you.
Yeah, life comes in.
It's why I think so many times I attach creativity to the young, too.
Like when you have that nest around you, when you have just, you're not thinking, how is there going to be food tonight?
You're not thinking, where's the milk?
Who's putting gas?
None of those things are part of your wheelhouse.
And then as you get out into the world more, you're like, okay, I have to survive.
I have to take care of myself.
I may have to take care of others.
Dude, even just saying those three things right there, there's no, yeah, there's no room for creed.
There's not a lot of room for, I mean, you might be able to cut your son's egg a win as a star, but outside of that, you're not doing a lot of arts and crafts.
And yet here's the kicker.
Like, he knows more about music right now than he ever has in his life.
It takes knowledge and experience to really get to the next level.
And I mean, we have this society, this school system that doesn't really value creativity.
It values the test scores, the grades, do this, do that.
I mean, I'm seeing this right now with my youngest, who is this bright, creative, a little, I mean, a little bit of a pain in the ass, a little bit of an imp.
I could have guessed.
I don't even know him.
I mean, and sometimes the school isn't really thrilled.
And, you know, we get these emails or phone calls, and it's just, oh, God.
And I mean, heck, my impulse is to start going, okay, let's just, let's just tone it down, Asher.
You know, let's just, they say this, just do it.
By the time that you're out of school, by the time that, you know, you're in college or at a job, you know, it's not rewarded.
It's not reinforced.
People say they want creativity.
Most don't.
They want little creativity.
They want, oh, figure out a quicker or cheaper way of doing this.
They don't want an idea that'll be, well, we actually now, maybe we should really rethink how we're approaching all this stuff.
None of your teachers want to hear why they're wrong.
I mean, I love it.
But a lot don't, though.
No.
Which would honestly welcome a lot of creativity because then you're creating a lot of conversation.
Yeah, definitely the more that we are set in our ways about things and the more that we leave things set around us and set things harshly around us, which happens a lot these days, especially in a lot of businesses because there's so many lawsuits.
There's so many like, you can't veer off the beaten path.
You can't even be creative.
You can barely even speak, you know, without fear.
So for there to be room for creativity, sheesh, that's the first thing out of the door a lot of times.
The biggest advice, give yourself an hour a week, you know, where, okay, yes, you have all this crap you have to do, and you're tired, and you're spending all this time on just surviving.
Give yourself an hour a week.
Turn everything off.
And it's okay if you don't produce anything.
It's okay.
like, again, my thing is writing, but when I have writer's block, which is a lot, it's okay to just read something you wrote before and try to remember that mindset.
It's okay to just Oh, God, yes.
Because you're reaching back to where you were being creative.
Or just type words.
Just, I mean, when I'm trying to write more of my nonfictiony stuff, I'll write the title and my name, and then I'll do a page break and I'll put a placeholder for where like the introduction goes.
And all of a sudden, I'm on page five.
And hey, I mean, I haven't written anything, but there's a feeling of, okay, I can do this.
I'm doing something.
Yeah, I'm in this, the table set.
Dude, I remember, remember when you were young, you would just write your name all the time?
I mean, for like probably the whole time I was in school, I was just writing my name and drawing it differently and adding something, you know, or writing something, drawing a picture of a hat or something.
You know, like you always had a pen, you always had an immediate element with the pen and paper, and you had to have it out in class to look like you were doing something.
So you were always, there was just such a half second between yourself and actually creating something.
And whether it's drawing, whether it's writing, whether it's whatever.
Whereas on a laptop, which most of my students have their laptops out or their phones, I mean, you're much more inclined to be opening up Instagram, Twitter, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you're more likely to be consuming.
And if you have like 30% of your brain that you're focusing with, you're probably not going to be doing something new.
And you'll be aware that, okay, well, if I'm moving my thumbs or looking down at my crotch, the professor's probably going to figure out what's going on.
Whereas if you're just writing and taking notes, but then you start writing something else or drawing, I mean, there's a certain immediacy.
There's a certain you're creating.
I mean, you're physically creating something that feels more tangible, I guess, maybe since it's right there as opposed to like a laptop or something.
And it's done, it's there.
I mean, when I'm in my idea phase, I still want a pad of paper and a pen.
Because if I want to all of a sudden start drawing things in relationship to each other, I can.
And I know you can do that on like Microsoft, whatever.
It screws up every time I try to do it.
And then I start going into, okay, problem solving, How do I fix this?
Right.
Next thing you know, your whole hour is gone.
You spend it listening.
Yeah.
And the idea is gone.
Right.
And it's like, okay.
And then you're upset.
Yeah.
I mean, how many times does it take for you to lose all your work when it crashes before you're like.
Yeah, done.
Yeah, to go back to what that young man's question was, I mean, I think that was a good suggestion to go back into what you've done before because you were creative then.
So I notice like I'll make a gratitude list about five days a week right in the morning because I've struggled with trying to have gratitude, making sure that I have some gratitude.
I feel it, but I need to really practice it and I want to feel it more.
And so some days I'm like, man, I don't want to do this.
So what I'll do, I'll go back and just read things.
Oh, I'm so thankful for this friend of mine.
I'm thankful that I have legs.
I'm thankful that I can see different colors.
I'm thankful, you know, for sharks.
I'm thankful for this or that, you know, plants or whatever, different ways that people could walk backwards.
I'm thankful for anything.
And then next thing you know, my brain, it's like, I don't know.
I'm just in a place now where I'm like, man, I am thankful for stuff.
I am grateful for things.
Look at all these things I wrote, man.
It could be 100 pages of stuff.
And then my list is easier.
And then I even feel what I've already was talking about.
I wanted to feel gratitude.
I just, I am grateful instead of sitting there just pining like, I don't know if I'm grateful today or not, you know.
Yeah, just going back to our work, which was a starting point before that we conquered.
Absolutely.
And you're always a little better than you think because when you first do it, you probably are not as good as you think.
But then you work on it and you're remembering what you used to do and you're probably being very critical.
But then you go back and, you know, maybe it was more raw, but you see who you, what you were thinking.
And it's a little freeing.
Yeah.
I mean, listening to the music that he did five years ago, just listening to it.
You know, I mean, listening to it in the car.
And I mean, part of me has a very hard time reading my own stuff or, I mean, seeing myself or watching myself.
But reminding yourself of, if you're not who you are creatively where you want to be, remind yourself of when you were.
Yeah.
And that person's in you.
That person is there.
Oh, yeah.
And that person's still listening and paying attention and thinking and has new melodies.
And it doesn't mean these are going to be brilliant melodies.
You know what I mean?
There are all these books, you know, how to be a creative genius.
I can't tell you that.
Yeah.
Because, frankly, most people aren't.
But who cares?
I mean.
Well, in some ways, everybody's creative in some ways, aren't they?
Oh, absolutely.
It's the word genius that I hate.
Oh, yeah.
Because everybody wants to be a genius.
Everybody wants to be the best.
With creativity, I mean, yes, there are some people who, of course, who are creative geniuses, but I love think about your audience.
And that audience, it can be just you.
It can be your friends.
I mean, it can be the person you're doing something for.
I mean, if you're working on something, you know, that you want to give to your girlfriend or your mom, you know, I mean, think of, hopefully not the same thing.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Some areas, though.
We've got some select areas out there where some stuff's still illegal, you know.
And you think about who is it for?
A, it kind of reinforces the motivation, but it also, okay, well, her favorite color is orange.
I'm going to work that in.
Or, oh, she really likes chihuahuas.
And it kind of guides the work.
I mean, you can be your own audience after you do it.
I mean, I'm just thinking about you were talking about you have the ideas and you try them out and then you go back.
I mean, when you're reading or speaking the ideas from a while ago, you may not even remember when you wrote it down.
No.
Yeah.
And it's almost like you're collaborating with yourself in a weird way.
Yeah, it is.
It's funny.
Yeah, I hadn't thought about that exactly.
I just recently started doing it.
Like, I was having trouble.
So one day I went back and read and it made me feel so much better.
And I was like, oh, man, I'm writing down things that are great.
I can do this.
This isn't.
And I have a lot in me.
I'm like, oh, look at all these different things.
And it made me, yeah, it just set the table so much differently inside of me because I showed up with this pressure to create right now.
You know, so one of the things you were saying made me think about like this, we're constantly creating now.
You know, it's like we have to update.
We need an update on our Facebook.
We need an update on our Instagram.
We have to update.
We need new.
We need content, you know.
Where it used to be, you would have something and it'd be like, man, that was your thing for a while, you know?
We got a question that came in right here from a possibly young Vietnamese fella.
Who is he?
It's your boy Zane from Denver.
I just wanted to know what you guys thought about creative overload.
Sometimes I feel like I want to create everything.
Like I'm trying to start a podcast.
I want to make music.
I want to animate my text and do video editing.
And I want to do everything.
But sometimes I just feel like I got to pick and choose where my energy goes.
And I just want to know, do you guys ever feel creatively overloaded?
Where you just want to do all these different projects but can't?
Or do you guys just pick the things that you feel most passionate about?
Let me know what you guys think.
Thanks.
It's Zane signing off.
Gang gang.
Gang gang.
That's a great question.
Zane, yeah, maybe Russian.
You know, that is a great question.
What are you, the doctor, man?
Yeah, I thought it was kind of similar to what you just like.
Yeah.
Just all those different...
We used to focus on one thing, now there's And certainly, I mean, I feel creative overload.
I always have too many things that I want to do and too many other things I have to do.
And the thing about what Zane was talking about is that sometimes they were in different areas and it takes different things to be creative in different areas.
Oh, yeah.
It takes some space between the two sometimes.
I'm doing banking and then I got to, you know, I'll close my Chase account and then I'm supposed to write a paragraph about something.
I need a few minutes, man.
It takes different knowledge.
It takes to you can't practice this is different practices, you know.
When I was younger, I was like, okay, I'm going to try to do everything.
Now I'm older, you know.
And one of the big, actually one of the big things was about two years ago, I had a heart attack.
No way, man.
And I was a lot bigger.
Oh, wow.
Lost weight.
I mean, still big, but, you know, not.
I think you look right size.
I mean, you look like you do a safari.
You could do on a dinosaur.
I would see you doing those things, James.
I'd probably be the first one eating, but thank you.
That's all right.
Look, man, delectable.
You'd be that delectable choice, you know?
And a little more tender, I think.
Wow, so did that adjust?
I mean, what did that do to you?
It changed it because I decided that there had to be a particular reason for me picking any project I did.
I mean, one big reason was the passion, the love.
You know, this is something I love doing.
It's like right now, one of the books I'm doing, I'm a big theater geek.
And me and a composer who Zombie Prom and a lot of really fun musicals, Dana Rowe, were finishing up this book on creativity and musical theater for young performers and just kind of conveying all this how can you be creative.
And it's just fun.
We Skype every Wednesday and it's one of the most fun I've had on a project.
I do things to help folks.
I mean, I love mentoring students.
And so I'll do stuff.
I have graduate students, undergrads, and I'll do stuff that is closer to their interests that will help them advance in the field.
To me, just being able to give back, even if it's a little bit, is huge.
And I mean, third thing is more practically, like, okay, some things pay money and money is a decent thing to have.
But it's not letting any of that, certainly not letting the money part overwhelm things.
But it's not like you're going to make that.
I mean, you can't just follow your heart because...
It does become a balance.
You know, almost going back, yeah, it's like it does, yeah, you have to balance it.
But like you're saying, that balance is what's going to also keep you in a space to be creative, to want to stay passionate.
Yeah, that overload is such a big thing, man.
It's like you got 19 things open going on.
You just agreed to do something else because you want to do it.
It sounds great.
And just, you can really get burnt out.
How do you make choices?
I've gotten a little bit better about saying no about things.
I mean, really, a lot of times, if I find if I'm overthinking something too much, then it's not something that I wanted to do.
So unfortunately, I'm extremely indecisive.
It's something that I just, I really struggle with it.
And it's hard to do.
It's hard to say no, though.
Yeah.
We're so we tend to be people pleasers.
Yeah.
I mean, you're in a common, you want to make people laugh and tell them, no, I can't do that.
Yeah, I want people to like me.
I want to like myself.
So if I'm not trying to please them, I'm trying to please myself.
And between that pack of wolves, it's a constant yes.
And there's so many options of things to do now.
So that's another thing.
It's like, say you make a to-do list of the things you have, like you said, things I have to do.
And then when I'm done with those, things that I would like to do.
So you get your have-tos out of the way, your requirements.
Then you're left with a list of things I'd like to do.
But then today, there's 7,000 things trying to influence you.
And there's so much other available content.
It used to be you had to ride your bike to your buddy's house to even look at his diorama for 20 minutes, you know?
And then his mom knew y'all was hiding pornography somewhere and beat everybody's butt.
But now it's like you can, you know, you can do anything.
You can order a sheep's costume.
You can be playing Legend of Zelda with seven people from China.
You can do anything you want.
And it's right there.
And those things are very addictive.
So for those things to be sitting on top of the things you would like to do every time, your passion projects and stuff, man, it's a real battle.
Because, I mean, you can't be creating 24-7.
It's exhausting.
And so you had the, I mean, first it's this, okay, well, I do want to blow off steam and relax.
You know, and then what are the things that are exciting enough to me that it's in almost that same category, that working on this, creating this thing is the same level of fun as the really fun thing that whatever it is you enjoy doing that may not be, that probably isn't creating.
I mean, if you can find something that you're working on, that you get that same level of passion, that's even though this is brain work or it's emotion work or it requires thought and effort, I still want to do this even more than just, you know, doing the thing that allows me to zone out.
I mean, that's a pretty nice sign that you're onto something.
Yeah, that you're onto something you really care about.
Yeah, so it's hard.
It'd be hard to say no to things, but it does get easier to do it.
And then what I start to realize is people appreciate it when I can communicate a lot clear.
Even though part of me is like, I don't want to say this because I'm going to upset them.
It's really people just want to make the most use of their time as well and to really be able to communicate clearly.
And really just find out, yeah, what is really passionate for you.
You know, sometimes, too, at your core, sometimes it's hard to admit to yourself.
Because, absolutely.
I mean, if you've ever, I'm sure, all of us have worked on stuff that just your heart wasn't into it and it was kind of boring, but you knew you had to do it.
I mean, yeah, high school and beyond that.
I mean, I'll do like two minutes on that and then I'll three minutes on something else and it'll keep coming back and I'll be doing it minute by minute by minute until this 10 minute task will take me like four hours because I hate it so damn much.
Yeah.
I mean, if I think like why, why are we creative?
You know, like what we need out of necessity, probably originally.
Stuff we need, you know, it's stuff enjoyment.
I mean, oh, yeah, like if you want to say you're in a man, you're in Adam and Eve or somebody, or you know, Larry and Janet or whoever you believe in, you know, say or, you know, or Rashid and whoever, you know, Sean Trace or whatever, whoever's in the garden and the guy sees the girl walk by, he might try to do a magic trick or something with a stick and a leaf or something to try and get her attention.
He's going to be creative.
He's going to, I mean, even in nature, you see those little lizards and stuff show off their backbones and whatever.
You know, they do that.
Or you got the bower birds.
And they go and they find all this pretty stuff and they make like a something pretty, or they'll hide a piece of food and they'll build stuff around it.
But some male bowerbirds learned, we don't need the piece of food.
We just take a rock, build over it.
And by the time the female bowerbirds get to the rock and they're going, hey, that's a wife.
Or the male bowerbird's 10 miles away going, well, thank you.
Yeah, Sayonara, man.
Damn, birds are wild.
But yeah, so yeah, creativity because you want to get something.
Here's some people right here.
Decent group.
Let's see what we got.
Hey, Dio.
We have a question.
Are left-handed people more creative than right-handed people?
Gang, gang.
Gang.
It's a beautiful group.
Look like nurses or something, maybe?
Trying to figure out what the photos up there were.
Teachers, possibly?
Yeah, it could be teachers.
Lots of binders.
Yeah.
Beautiful groups of ladies and a gentleman right there.
Yeah, or left-handed people.
Yeah, let's answer that for them, doctor.
That one's easy, no.
No.
The whole left brain, right brain?
No, no, no.
Doesn't matter.
No.
Doesn't work that way.
Creativity is not a left-brain thing.
Analytic reasoning is not a right-brain thing.
It's all way more complicated and something that both of us could be trying to understand for the next five hours and not come to something, but it's not right brain, left brain.
I see.
Yeah, you always have people be like, oh, well, Daniel's left brain, you know.
He can't, you know.
He don't know how to play dodgeball or something.
You're like, well, what the hell does that have to do with anything?
Yeah, some people, it's just like the most simplest way to say things, I guess, sometimes.
And it's, I mean, you can't blame them.
No.
I mean, it's like whenever there's a new study out about creativity, people always forward it to me.
And it'll always be a quick and easy thing.
You want to be more creative, try, and it's, you know, a messy desk or going for a walk or having some chocolate.
And it's always, well, you know, I mean, it probably wouldn't hurt, but it's not going to make you all of a sudden more creative.
I mean, maybe it puts you in a good mood.
You know, when it's talking about you're in a good mood, you might come up more ideas.
Yeah, but you're not going to suddenly be, you know, who's a famous artist, dude?
The guy Snoopy, yeah, Picasso.
Or Charles Shelman.
Yeah, yeah.
You're not going to suddenly be, yeah, I remember when I was growing up, they said if you eat peanuts and raisins together at the same time, it'll make your brain activate and you'll be able to be more creative.
And I remember they would give us that before at school, that some of the parents would bring them in little bags for the kids in class.
If it was that easy?
I mean, come on.
If you knew that there was anything you could do that would make you funnier, you'd do it.
Yeah.
And the only thing I can do is practice.
Is it the same with creativity then, you think?
Yeah.
I mean, if there was a quick, easy, sexy solution of, oh, you want to be more creative, just blank.
I'd already be a multi-millionaire because I would just be doing that.
Creativity is about revision.
It's about figuring out what you need to know and getting experience with the domain.
And if you want to be a writer, reading other stuff.
If you want to be a comedian, thankfully this part's more fun, but you got to watch a bunch of comedy.
I mean, there are certain rules, so to speak, even of comedy, where it's not, oh, I want to break the rules.
You got to understand them before you break them.
Well, no, you can watch comedy, not even by watching, like, you know, comedian sets, even just by being in a lot of funny instances, watching other people be funny, seeing what works and what doesn't.
Like, I'll see somebody do something sometime, and they don't even realize it.
And I'll be like, oh, man, that's such a unique way to be funny.
That person doesn't, they don't even realize what they're doing.
But sometimes you meet people just the way they are and the way that they talk or behave or something is just extremely funny for some reason.
It's like the joke is, not that they're the joke personally, but just the way that they approach the world is just, it's like the setup is already there.
So the punchline, when they say anything, it's a punchline.
You know, going back to what you were talking about with education and how they really do not, they don't, it's not that they don't value, I think teachers really value creativity when they see it, but it's almost like they don't have time to teach it or it's just not something that we value as a society, or it's just that we already have put enough pressure on our education system that has nothing to do with them.
Do you think?
I think you're hitting on some great stuff.
I mean, most teachers who I know, they want to encourage creativity.
I mean, there's a lot of this stereotype of, oh, schools kill creativity and all this stuff.
I mean, not really.
I mean, most teachers truly want their students to be more creative.
Usually they don't know how to do it.
I mean, when you get trained to be a teacher, there's no class on nurturing.
I mean, okay, there is at UConn because we help, you know, I help a teacher do.
Usually there's not how do you nurture creativity?
And it's not always intuitive.
I mean, so often the impulse is, okay, well, you know, to give the gold star or the reward, and, you know, that can kind of kill creativity pretty easily.
So you have teachers who don't always know, and teachers who may not trust themselves to know what's creative, even though they probably know a lot more than they think they do.
But then you have the whole, I mean, the schools are judged by the standardized test scores.
And these standardized test scores, I mean, my first two years out of grad school, I worked for a testing company.
I mean, it's not that they're meaningless or anything, because I mean, people tend to feel very extremely.
Either standardized test scores is the only way, or they're complete garbage.
Neither is true.
I mean, they mean something, but they don't mean everything.
And when a teacher's pay is determined by the standardized test score of their students, I mean, shit, I'd be teaching the test.
Of course, yeah, you got to keep your job.
people are going to want to survive.
I mean, the places that I've worked with that are excited about creativity or doing really good stuff, a lot of that is when people up on high, the superintendent, both have the flexibility and the interest, and it trickles down.
I mean, one problem is that the really good people end up getting picked up for better jobs.
And the test sector stuff.
And then, boom, school goes right back to the way it is.
They bring in a principal who wants things.
Nope, why are we doing this?
We need these test scores.
And the funny thing is creativity adds to test scores.
I mean, there's some work I'm doing with this school in Australia with this guy, Tim Patston.
It's the Geelong Grammar School.
And they've been looking at creativity and increasing creativity.
And we just found out that creativity helps predict their big test score almost as much as grades do.
And grades, obviously.
I mean, if I say, hey, you get good grades, you think you're going to get a good test score?
Of course.
But if I say, hey, you're really creative, you're going to get a better test score.
I don't know, maybe.
Well, creativity, I remember, helped a lot of times, especially.
That's why I love when it came to the question, the written out ones.
Because you're like, oh, I didn't study, I didn't read anything, but I got a chance.
It's like if you could find a way to be crafty enough in that space when you had to write out your, when you had to really give an answer, it was like, what do you think about this?
Then you really had a shot, I felt like, sometime with creativity, you could really create something, you know, you could, yeah, you just had a chance.
You know, you had a chance to make something new.
You had a chance to make something novel.
Now, one thing, so say if like, you know, a lot of times teachers have to teach based on the test scores and a lot of people at a certain point they might think, oh, well, this, a lot of extremely creative people will drop out of formal education or, you know, public school or whatever school and still do really well.
I mean, sometimes that even drives people, doesn't it?
Doesn't that sometimes spurn their creativity more?
Like, oh, they don't understand me here in this space.
I need to take my own path, which is kind of what creativity is sometimes?
It can.
They have to get lucky.
And this is also where money comes in.
If you have these people who feel that way and they drop out, but they're from a well-off family, that's one thing.
You end up losing more people, I think, than you gain, so to speak.
Because certainly you have people, screw this, I'm dropping out, I'm forming my own company, and you have these amazing success stories.
But you also have the people who, if they could have just been allowed to flourish a little bit more in high school, would have realized, wait, I'm passionate about this, and I can express myself this way, and then would have stuck with it and done something that would have used their creativity and contributed to the world.
You know, it's funny.
Sometimes, like, I think some people are really creative.
Like, people can be creative in all type of ways.
Like, the way somebody loves somebody could be very creative.
You know, the way that somebody, you know, I had an ex-girlfriend who, you know, she would do really nice things, like leave a really nice note sometimes that was really sentimental, you know.
And I always thought, it's not creative, but just her idea of how to create love and the show express that was very creative, I thought.
I'd argue that is creative.
Yeah.
I mean, it was creative.
Yeah, to me, it was creative.
I guess it's just not what we generally think of when we think of creativity.
Exactly.
And that's one of the things that limits us.
Because, I mean, if you think of, okay, what's creative?
I mean, arts.
Okay, somebody who paints or draws or composes.
And yes, it is.
So science.
So is business.
And so is all this stuff in everyday life from writing love notes.
Magic.
Magic.
Oh, God, yeah, magic.
Animal training.
I have an African gray parrot who I've taught to quote silence the lambs.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Freaks the hell out of our guests.
You win this round, yeah.
Dude, I used to make love to a girl in Denver, and she had a gray parrot that would stay on my shoulder the whole time.
This girl Kelly back in the day.
You know that her parrot still makes sounds of the kind.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Oh man.
Well, the only sound I made was, oh, sorry.
That's my.
But my audience knows I'm not really sexually good at it.
So does the parrot.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can't even imagine.
I hope the parrot doesn't take up smoking like I did at that time.
It was a different time.
We had a couple of other questions.
I want to get to one video question that came in here right here for you.
I also had a question about drugs and creativity.
Like a lot of people think it kind of inspires them or they need it to be creative.
Have you done research on that?
Do you see people are more creative with alcohol or weed?
So there's been a lot of research on this.
And oh yeah, by a lot of my friends even.
The informal kind.
Your producer.
Yeah, producer and coliner are a new coke producer.
Kind of like the mental illness question, you're going to find this study or that study saying this or that.
But I'm going to just give a more overall thing.
A lot of people will smoke weed, drink, or do other stuff because they think it will make them become creative.
And people who, for example, who smoke pot, they think they're being more creative.
So if you have a bunch of people and you have this half, we're going to give you some weed and this half, we're going to give you like oregano, but just tell you which weed.
And they all do something creative.
The people who are on weed are going to think, man, we were just, We did great.
This is super creative.
But then you take what they did and you show it to other people, the people on pot aren't more creative.
There's no difference.
It's just a perception.
It's just perception.
And is that perception only when they're under the influence of pot or when they're high?
Because when they sober up, do they think, yeah, I guess they just think, oh.
And I mean, well, of course, I could not speak from experience, but how many of people may look back on what they were, notes they took, whatever, or scribblings when they were inebriated or on some chemical and go, what the hell was I thinking?
Or this is not the answer to the world problem.
Yeah, I thought I always had the answer to the world, bro.
That's so funny.
One time I was real, real high and, oh, man, what happened?
Oh, I thought I had this great joke.
I drove by.
I wasn't driving, but I was in the car by myself going forward.
Of course.
And I saw a snake.
They had like a snake, a cartoon snake on a billboard.
And here was the joke I thought.
I thought to myself, I was going to tell my friends, oh, I saw a snake.
Don't worry, it was on a billboard.
That was the joke.
And it was, and I thought at the time, no joke, man, I wrote it down nine times to make sure I break it down.
Because I don't trust ink that much when I'm high, you know.
And then the next day I read it and I was like, oh my God, this is the dumbest thing ever.
And that's when I was right, when it was the dumbest thing ever.
Yeah.
So overall, that's the truth.
But is there sometimes, I mean, there's some times where somebody under the influence could do something amazing.
Oh, of course.
I mean, there's also, whenever we study stuff, there's this question of whether something's related or whether it actually causes it.
I mean, it's the same way they say, like, if you give infinite monkeys typewriters, they'll write Shakespeare.
I mean, if you have a whole bunch of people who are getting high regularly, which kind of describes college, people are going to do really creative stuff.
It doesn't mean the weed, is there a reason why they're being creative.
It's the same thing with mental illness and creativity.
Of course, all these people who have different mental disorders may be incredibly creative.
It doesn't mean there's any causal link.
And if anything, it may be that when things are acting up, it may be harder to create.
Or in a more positive way, the creativity may help them cope and feel better, but it's not some romantic Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear, you know, and I have, you know, I've done 37 shots of vodka.
I'm going to create the world's great novel.
doesn't really work that way.
Maybe you're drunk and writing the Rose Great novel, but...
Probably not.
William Faulkner is probably an alcoholic who also wrote.
And so a lot of times they marry the two that it was, you know, there's definitely a romanticization that happens over time with almost anything, really.
I feel like we almost romanticize anything.
So you're going to take the fact that he probably had alcoholism and then put it with the fact that he wrote a lot.
And next thing you know, he's this great guy who's sitting behind a bottle of scotch.
And we're not really thinking about all the other alcoholics who maybe would have been amazing, but who were passed out in their own vomit.
That's Ole Miss University is where that all occurred.
University of Mississippi.
And it really is.
All right.
But yeah, shout out to Kappa Sig there.
You know, because I used to worry, you know, I don't do drugs or alcohol, and I used to worry that if I stopped doing those, that I wouldn't be able to be creative.
And it's a fear of a lot of people.
And there's no evidence of that.
Just as there's no evidence.
Similarly, a lot of people are worried about taking like prescription drugs for anxiety, depression.
That does not hurt creativity.
Really?
I think that too sometimes.
That's funny.
It's so important.
It's so important to realize that because people often won't seek help.
You can't be creative after you're dead.
Right.
That definitely ceases creativity.
I mean.
And if you're suffering, I mean, even if you look at the most stereotypical of, you know, the mad geniuses or whatever, the people with extreme depressions or manias.
Like Howard Hughes, maybe?
He was an extreme case, but yes, I suppose I just say extreme cases.
At the most extreme was not when they were being their most creative.
Like if you're going up and down at the peaks and the valleys, you're still not creating.
It is always worth it both in a life point, but also even a creativity point to get yourself better.
I mean...
Is there something inside of us then you think like a man versus world level or something that makes us think that having pain or something will give us creativity?
Do you think it's some...
And bad things happen.
And that sucks.
And bad things happen to us, and that sucks.
If we can make something come out of it.
Okay, I had a shitty childhood, but I write about it or paint about it.
Therefore, it was worth it.
So there's inspiration there.
A lot of inspiration comes from struggle.
A lot of creativity.
Does creativity come from struggle?
It can.
Absolutely.
But not only from that.
Like, it's not enough so to put yourself through this struggle.
I see.
You know, so it's like, I mean, yes, if you grew up with these hardships, that can absolutely be an inspiration.
The same way, you know, if you went through a period of making bad decisions.
But it's not a reason to make more bad decisions or to do more things.
Because it just doesn't...
Exactly.
And I mean, I wish life was that easy.
Yeah, it's nice if it justifies for us as we're getting better, if we use it as like, oh man, yeah, all that behind me, I'm glad that's behind me now.
And I'm using that as like as a motivation or inspiration or momentum to do something different now.
Absolutely.
But if we're using it as well, I should probably stop doing this, but it's making me creative.
That's not helpful.
Yeah, that's just a bad, that's just not the truth.
No.
Yeah.
What do we have here, Nick?
Here's a beautiful little lady right there.
Could have fixed her hair, but fuck it.
She wrote that, I didn't.
Hey, James, my name is Renee from Pennsylvania, and I was hoping that you could cover the different types of creativity.
I'm just assuming that it's almost like different types of intelligence.
And if it is, maybe something that the different types of creativity can do better than the other types.
Almost like a career path or something like that.
Or if you can expand on the different types just in general, that'd be great.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
So there are a ton of these different theories about stuff.
I'm just going to pick a few really kind of important stuff.
Okay.
So you had the idea of divergent thinking, and that's being able, that's a type of creativity when you're coming up with a whole bunch of ideas.
It's what you might think of as brainstorming.
Oh, yeah.
And that is really good at the beginning of a project.
There's what's sometimes called convergent thinking or idea evaluation.
And that sounds really unsexy because choosing your best idea, that doesn't sound creative.
But that ability is also incredibly important because you can come up with 30 ideas, but you don't have time in your life to pursue all 30. And figuring out, okay, these two are the ones that are the best, the most creative, the ones that I think can work, that is its own ability and process.
There is what's sometimes called associative thinking, and that's these different concepts or thoughts.
And there's often a fairly obvious connection, but trying to think of as many different connections as you can.
So, like if I say cow, there's 30 words that are probably right away coming into your head, and that, you know, moo.
Note boy.
Yeah.
Making, okay, how remote can I go?
How much can I think of things other people aren't going to think of?
These are all different types of what we might call like creative thinking.
There's also a lot of stuff involving the creative personality.
One huge thing is being open to experiences.
This is wanting to try new foods, wanting to do new things, wanting to just have new experiences.
When you say, what the hell, I'm going to try this even though I haven't done it.
For some people, it's traveling.
For other people, it's wanting to get into nature.
There's also openness to ideas.
And that's wanting to challenge yourself intellectually.
That's wanting to debate people.
It's wanting to problem solve.
But it's also being willing to accept that you might be wrong.
So openness to experience tends to be related a bit more to arts, openness to intellect, a bit more to science-y business stuff.
Another component that sometimes will happen before idea generation is problem finding.
We're so used to being given the problem that often we're solving the wrong problem.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's, you could call that our, you could call that the government, almost anytime you want throughout history, I feel like.
Hollywood does that a lot of times.
I feel like they're always, everybody thinks they're proactive.
They're very reactive, and they're always solving a problem that I feel like is eight months too late, I feel like.
I mean, yeah, one successful movie does something, and they come out with 30 movies just like it.
I mean, it's.
Let's say that all your friends are like, you know, Theo, you're just not that funny.
There's a bunch of different problems you might be wanting to address.
One of them, okay, maybe you're not funny.
Maybe your friends are just assholes.
Right.
Who knows?
You've got to find out what the problem is.
And they all could be the problem.
Yeah.
A little bit.
But so often we'll just jump to something where, I mean, if you realize, oh, I'm not making enough money to be able to still live in LA, there's a lot, maybe you're, okay, I'm going to work more and make more money or I'm going to cut expenses.
If somebody's been hacking your account and is stealing $2,000 a month, you're off solving these problems and it's still getting screwed.
Right.
You're solving problems you might not even have because you're not seeing a different problem.
It's interesting, so there's even creativity when you're looking for what the problem is.
Oh, yeah.
And in real life, it's like a doctor trying to treat a patient.
You got the symptoms.
And I mean, certainly, you know, there's the old saying that you look for horses and not zebras, but sometimes it's a zebra.
Yeah.
And being able to do that, not jumping in with both feet and ending up wasting all your time and resources on solving the wrong thing.
That's a new problem right there if you do that.
Yeah.
It just made a whole new problem.
I know we had Dr. Jordan Peterson had a theory about creativity.
Yeah, it was just, you know, his idea of creativity was that in order for something to technically be creative, it has to be something new.
So I guess I'm curious, one example I could give would be, say you're a fan Of music, and you make a cover song of somebody else's original music.
You've then created something new that wasn't there before, but is it really creative?
What I'd argue is that just like before I was taught my different, when I was taught my different creative processes, there's also different types of creative contributions, you might say.
Where you have some that are the shockingly new, oh my God, this changes the field and everything's different.
And that's what we often will think about, you know, when we think about, you know.
Tesla or inline roller skates, any of that.
The iPhone, all that stuff.
iPhone.
But most creativity that we know is usually just like a little step forward.
And I mean, so, okay, you know, that water bottle that you have, that is a slightly cheaper version of a different water bottle.
Right.
That was a little bit of an innovation.
Or that design is made so that it gives you a better angle when you tilt the bottle back.
These are all modifications.
Is this shocking creativity?
No.
But it's increment.
It's a little small bit.
And then you have this almost replication creativity, where you're doing things in your way.
And this would be, you know, you doing a cover of a song or you painting your own version of something.
Like Pappy invented his own version of The Simpsons.
And this is a great example.
I mean, is this creative?
I think it's really creative.
Is it shockingly new?
Well, it's somebody else's style.
It still counts.
I mean, it's one of the things I often will come back to because people, sometimes I feel like a broken record.
They'll say, oh, I'm not creative, whatever.
And some of it is, they'll think, well, yeah, I did my own version of it, but that's not new.
And okay, maybe you're not a genius.
I'm not saying people are all geniuses.
It still counts.
It still counts.
And you get credit, whatever you want to say for that.
I mean, there is, you know, the Lonely Island song with Acon?
No, that's what T-Pain.
Yeah, the other one with Acon.
They've just had, as I would say in my class, to be delicate, they've just been physically intimate with somebody.
Okay.
And they keep giving all these situations, still counts.
Still counts.
Where's a bag on her head?
Still counts.
You know, you're doing your little doodle and you're not showing to anybody?
Still counts.
You're telling a joke in your own way that you heard another comedian say, assuming that you're given credit, still counts.
You're doing your own spin on it.
You're making it a little bit better.
You're writing fan fiction or whatever.
You're doing your own version of something.
Still counts and you're creative.
Doesn't mean you can't improve.
You should improve.
Right.
It counts.
And give yourself credit for that.
Yeah, if you build a building, even though somebody's already built a building and you're not Franklin Lloyd Wright, was he a building maker?
Yeah.
Okay.
Then, yeah, it still counts.
You still built a building.
You still did something.
You still did something magnificent, something that's hard to do.
and something that's still going to be there.
Is it hard for us to do I'm sure you get approached with this kind of question a lot.
No.
I mean, back in the 1800s, the guy from the patent office, well, everything that could possibly be invented has been invented.
Well, that woman has been an asshole because everybody keeps saying that.
Got it.
Pessimist.
I mean, we always end up going in different directions.
I mean, if you go back to the 60s and you try to see, okay, well, what do they think the future was going to be like?
It was all flying cars and the moon and living, you know, okay, that didn't happen.
But we can communicate with anybody instantly.
You can have a buddy who lives in Spain and you can talk to him every day for free.
Yeah.
Who would ever, I mean, nobody ever would have thought of that in the 60s.
Probably some guy thinking that.
It'll just be different.
Right.
We may not know the medium.
We may not know.
Do you think that there's still a lot we can learn scientifically?
There's still a lot to learn out there?
Do you think there's like that we're do you because sometimes I feel like oh, we've we've kind of figured it out everything.
We got the periodic table of elements.
We know everything a tier.
We know all the recipe items.
Do you think there's more out there?
I think there's a lot more out there than already is.
I think that I mean this is true for I think anything, but we know a very small little bit.
And I mean look, studying creativity is not curing cancer.
It's not nuclear physics or whatever.
Right.
Or even close.
But the world of possibility, I feel like, is part of it with creativity.
And just trying to figure out, you know, what makes people more creative.
What are the people who are creative?
What do they have in common?
How can we help it?
How can we help these people?
How can we encourage it?
How can we figure out, I mean, just how do you give feedback to somebody to get them to be more creative?
I mean, if you're too harsh, they're going to go, okay, I guess I just suck at it.
But if you're too lenient, they're never going to learn.
They're just going to keep sucking.
Obviously, there's somewhere that medium point, there are so many of these questions that if you actually look, okay, well, what does the research say?
I mean, even something like, you know, creativity in marijuana, that's such a, everybody thinks that.
There are certain questions that, you know, people always want to know.
And it's been studied, but we're talking 20, 25 studies, not 400.
And, I mean, how do you measure creativity?
Right.
I mean, I have some answers, but there's a whole bunch of different creativity tests, and they're all good for this, bad for that.
And if you have 30 studies, five of them use this measure, and five use that one, and six just are asking people what they think.
And so you can't even really combine all of it.
And so if you're just trying to ask a really basic question, like, okay, well, are people who are creative in physics, are they the same people who are creative in music?
I mean, short answer is probably not.
But we don't quite know.
We're still figuring out or What are the things that will kind of predict who's the creative scientist, who's the creative businessman or businesswoman, who's a creative teacher?
Or if they find some tangent between physics and music, that suddenly the whole playing field is different.
And suddenly your physicians are damn, you know, kid rock or whatever, you know.
And that's such good words.
And the funny thing is that's the type of creativity that scares the crap out of people.
Like the little incremental stuff, the, oh, you know, we're making this cop show except now the cops are all professional circus clowns.
You know, that's like a little bit forward.
Nobody's scared of that.
Everybody likes that.
It's when you're talking, well, hey, maybe when we do surgery, we should be playing a megadath.
Listening to megadeth, or we should be doing it and using our feet instead of hands.
I mean, that's the type of creativity that scares the crap out of people.
And they don't like it.
They don't like creative people.
They say they do, but they don't.
Well, then there must be such a difference then between somebody who's able to think creatively and somebody who can't.
There must be.
All right, maybe when it comes to ideas, if it scares people that much.
Instead of can't, I'd say won't.
I think all of us can, but it's risky.
It's taking a risk.
I mean, are you willing to risk pissing people off or looking stupid or losing money or all this stuff in order to put forward this idea?
And so many of us aren't.
So many of us take the safe choice.
So many of us, I mean, it's a hell of a lot easier to do what's been done or just to tweak it a little bit.
I mean, if you wanted to, you could give the exact same comedy routine every single time and you'd be fine the rest of your life.
And there are a lot of people that sounds pretty great.
They don't have to think.
Which just wouldn't, yeah, but at a certain point, yeah, I would lose.
It would, yeah.
You'd go crazy.
I'd go crazy.
I'd milk.
You have that need to create.
Not everybody has the need, but others have the need.
Don't know how.
Others had the need, but don't have the resilience, don't have the support.
I mean, I was lucky.
I had a really encouraging family, you know, and folks who are psychologists.
I had really good teachers.
Like a lot of the people who study creativity often, oh, they struggled in school or whatever.
I was lucky.
I don't mean like I was a great student, but I really liked my teachers and I was supported.
I was lucky.
I mean, there are people who don't have these advantages.
And you got to be brave and resilient and push back and keep going.
And it means defying, defying other people, defying yourself.
I mean, having all these people always say, you're wrong.
You're wrong.
Yeah.
It's hard.
Or having people not understand you as well.
It's like a way that you take it, you know, but to you it comes off as you're wrong.
You know, just people.
Yeah.
I think people not understanding you as well can really lead you to.
Can really lead you to sometimes refine what you're trying to say, which is what's necessary anyway.
But it's like now it's not even necessarily saying you're wrong.
It's getting personal about you.
Yeah.
You know?
Oh, it's gotten wild out there.
I mean, if you're making a joke on social media, I mean, that's what you do.
That's how you create, not just social media.
Right.
But it's not just, it's one thing people just go, yeah, I don't think that's funny.
But you also, people, you're an asshole.
Damn.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, I just, I mean, I knew, look, I'll accept that I'm not funny today, but I will not accept that I'm an asshole.
Yeah, that judgment, it's so easy to be right there to judge something that's not in front of you.
You know, we had a buddy recently in the comedy community that made some remarks after Kobe Bryant died and really had a sharp backlash.
And everybody was, you know, people that didn't even know him suddenly were furious.
And it was really all the people that kind of knew him, I think maybe were like, oh, we understand this is the way he operates sometimes.
This was not a, he didn't do a good job here as far as everybody was concerned.
Maybe a couple of Voldemorts out there that he really impressed, you know.
But on a large scale, a lot of people heard about him for the first time and were, and this was a bad way for it to happen, you know, as far as him feeling okay and stuff.
I mean, I'm sure it hurt his feelings.
But yeah, it's like people aren't really understanding these days.
Social media is not a real place to be understanding.
It's not very human.
And we always assume intent.
And this isn't even a social media thing.
I mean, if you're driving and somebody cuts you off, you're not thinking, oh, maybe they're driving their pregnant wife to the hospital and they're desperate to get there.
You're thinking, that guy's an asshole.
And it was intentional.
And he looked at me and said, screw you.
Yeah.
But when you cut somebody off, you're like, whoops, that was a mistake.
Well, they'll know it.
They'll be okay with it.
They know it wasn't.
Crazy.
Two different worlds going on.
When it comes to creativity, do you think about like, do you think that there's a higher power sometimes or something that puts ideas into us?
Like a lot of times I feel like when I've been my most creative, I don't feel like it has anything to do with me.
I feel like I'm just kind of like a conduit or whatever.
Receptacle for something, yeah.
Like, oh, there's no way I came up with that idea, really.
I mean, certainly, whatever you believe in, if you can just let yourself, whether it's your unconscious or whatever, letting your brain be a little open.
I mean, there's a reason why people get really good ideas in the shower or when driving because your body's occupied and you're doing something and so you're not necessarily distracted and your brain's just open and your mind is wandering and that's when whether it's your subconscious whether it's God whatever it is putting ideas the muse making sure you have those moments when you allow the insights to come is huge and if you're always boom boom boom boom
you're not gonna have that time you could have anything trying to sprout ideas and they won't they won't take root yeah you gotta i mean you gotta make sure you have the fertile the fertile soil out there.
Right.
Yeah.
You could have the archangel of the dang universe trying to fly out of your out of your damn septum, but if you're always on Instagram, you might miss it.
I mean, just letting that moment of reflection, you know, everything in moderation to a degree.
Guys, anything else you wanted to chime in?
No, this is fascinating, though.
I love the go back over your own work to kind of spark that creativity.
I think that's like a really actionable thing people can take away from it.
Is what?
Going over your own work to spark creativity when you're feeling like your creative juices run out.
I think that's something everybody can kind of adapt.
Yeah, it really blew my mind when I realized that, you know, and not even realize, but it's just so funny.
Just in the past maybe month, I was like, man, I don't want to write this gratitude list is specifically what it is.
And gratitude is such a real feeling and a visceral thing that I need to feel a lot of times to try and just feel okay in my day.
And then I go back and I'm like, oh, man.
And I'll read them and it's like, oh, then I'm there.
It's almost like I've already made the list.
I get the feeling as if I've already made the list.
And it's a real feeling.
It doesn't feel like a placebo either.
And for life, but for creativity, a certain kindness.
I mean, kindness to yourself also.
When you're going back and looking at your old stuff.
I mean, yeah, you're always going to be a little critical, but be kind to your younger self.
When you're thinking, I mean, it's why co-creation is such an amazing thing.
I mean, one of my favorite things as a researcher is to collaborate.
I hate that.
Have you found the right collaborator?
And of course, you got these two guys right here also.
Oh, no.
Nick is wonderful.
I mean, Nick is wonderful, and we probably do it a ton.
I do it a ton without even realizing it.
I have some fear about, something about it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Like what?
I don't know.
I don't want to.
It's like I'm afraid to share.
Not afraid to share.
I'm afraid I'm trying to think out the rest of this feeling.
I'm afraid to like have.
Man, I can almost figure out what it is.
Sometimes I really have to be able to get right on the feeling.
I don't like...
It's like a trust thing, I think.
You know?
It's like a really...
You know, and are they going to reject them?
Is it rejection or is it having them take the ideas and turn them into something you don't like?
I think at the core it's rejection.
I think that they're not going to like him or that they're...
And so it's my own attachment to my own ideas as well then.
And yet there's people you trust enough to share, you don't think of it as collaboration.
So is it that you'd be worried about, let's say, collaborating with somebody who you believe either would have where being rejected by them would be particularly painful?
Yeah, probably.
It probably just goes back to other relationships in my life where it's like I just have a lot of fear about that, you know?
But then it sticks, even though sometimes in work and stuff.
You know, I don't want to, I have to do it my, I'm only used to doing it my way.
You know, I'm just scared to not do it my way.
There's a danger there, of course, because if you just listen to those words, I'm afraid to do it my way, to not do it my way, and you want to do it this one way, there's a certain danger there.
Well, I'm going to miss out on a lot of probably collaboration.
I'm going to miss out on working together with people.
Are there people who you know appreciate and like your ideas, and they've established that, who you would trust?
And obviously, again, there are people, but people who you normally would have dismissed collaborating with.
Yeah, probably so.
So really, it's just this strong fear that's not really serving me.
And you're asking if fear helps or hurts creativity.
I mean, I think in a lot of ways it can hurt it.
Because we've got to take risks.
And risks are scary.
You know, I mean, shit, I'm a professor.
I'm not a performer.
This was a little scary, particularly given I had lost three of my front teeth.
And I'm going, oh, God, I'm going to sound like Daffy Duck or whatever.
That's the best part of it, though.
I can almost pop it out with my lips.
That'd be awesome.
Dude, if you could shoot that and land it in a lady's wine glass at a dinner, dude, I could get you a job somewhere near tonight.
You could be like one of those magicians that goes around the tables, you know?
My teeth?
Now.
Is that the three of hearts and my teeth in your hand?
Why, yes, it is your teeth.
And now they're back here.
Get your teeth out of my wife's leaving, buddy.
Oh, my bad.
Yeah, no, I guess you're right.
I mean, that fear just really prevents me from having that co-creation, you know.
And it's interesting hearing you say that that's one of your favorite kinds, is that collaborative, because that makes me really think I'm missing out on some cool stuff.
And certainly not with everybody.
It's not like, oh, it's all one big happy, no.
But there is three, four, five, six people who, and again, not usually all at once, but I find elevate my ideas.
And they make me think of stuff that I haven't really thought about before.
I mean, one of my main collaborators has a guy named Vlad.
Everybody should have a good friend named Vlad.
He's awesome.
He's brilliant.
And he does cultural stuff, all about how we interact with each other and sociocultural.
A lot of the stuff I do is more individual.
So, okay, well, what is, you know, Doug is creative and Bill is less creative and Sally is the most creative.
How are they different or the same?
Whereas Vlad's more interested in how can they all be creative together.
And when I was first like, oh man, I don't know about that stuff.
And he's one of my favorite collaborators now because he gets me to just think in new ways.
And it was hard at first, you know, and you have to kind of give up a little bit of some of your assumptions and it involves trust.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can imagine.
It almost sounds cool because then you're like, wow, if this person could get me to think different in ways, A, if I already feel like I'm a creative person, if it's something that I pride kind of in myself, there's not a lot of things, but that's a thing.
Then if they could get me to be creative in different ways that I don't even know, I mean, it is pretty tempting.
Yeah, I have a friend named Aaron, and he's like my most creative.
He's like, he's kind of business-minded a lot of times, but even in that space, he gets me to think so many different ways a lot of times.
Yeah, I think just being a little more open to it.
And it's not like it means now you got to only co-create.
I mean, you still, there are some things that will always feel like, okay, these are my personal ideas.
I want to marinate and do it my own way.
There's other stuff, and maybe it's just stuff that you couldn't figure out quite how to make be amazing.
Like, okay, I like this idea, but I don't know what to do with it.
And so put over here.
Isn't it funny how ideas you've had?
I mean, there's little ideas that I had 15, 18 years ago, and suddenly they'll come into play when I meet someone or something, or I'll see a new medium, and I'll be like, oh, that's why this thing has been spinning in my head for so long.
It's just waiting for this place to land that didn't even exist yet.
It's kind of amazing, isn't it?
That, to me, is fascinating, man.
It's like almost the way the galaxy is.
Like, you have these things spinning around, and we don't know really what the moons are.
I mean, we have an idea, but suddenly, all of a sudden, you know, somebody comes through on a battleship and they're a moon collector.
And then we're like, oh, now I know why these things are out there.
This guy's here to pick them up.
You know, you just don't know.
It's like, yeah, it's pretty fascinating.
It's funny how, like, there was a point when I like if I if I think of like virtual reality, something I'm, still to me, relatively has been around for a while.
The possibilities for being creative in virtual reality are amazing.
And like, we're only starting to really move with that.
Really?
I feel like it's the worst thing for us.
Why?
Because it's not me being creative, I feel like.
I feel like I used to have the video game inside of me, and now I'm like just looking inside of the game and looking inside of somebody else's imagination or like a company's imagination.
Some of them are like that.
But I mean the ones, and there's more and more stuff developing out there, but the ones that are showing you things you wouldn't have seen, but then not prescribing, not saying, like, because I agree, there's some games when it's, okay, I got to press the left button, got to do that.
That, I mean, it's going to be fun, but I'm in the stuff when you're truly exploring and when there's enough open stuff out there that you're connecting things.
You can play impossible instruments.
You can make art that wouldn't be possible in the real world.
You can co-create with people all around the world.
I mean, it's...
They have a cool app where you can sing with Asian people whenever you want.
And they sing and you sing the same song, but it's in different languages.
And then they mix them together.
I mean, that is pretty cool, dude.
I'll give you that.
That is pretty cool, man.
Yeah, man.
I mean, that's one thing about creativity.
It's like, we stop this conversation, it keeps on going.
And two weeks from now, you're having thoughts, you know, like it's also one reason why I like the collaboration so much because my internal dialogue, it's pretty good, you know.
Yeah.
But the dialogue with other people, and then you think, and then you think, okay, well, what would they have said about that?
And, well, okay, I decided not to take this risk because I'm worried about that.
And I get that, but how would it look if I did?
What's the worst that could happen if I did?
And you start branching out and thinking.
I mean.
Yeah, I mean, that's what, yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's a connection.
There's so much creativity in that, not having to be creative alone, you know?
I have one more question for you.
I know, like, you know, a lot of our listeners struggle with pornography addiction and stuff like that.
Do you find that there's been a lot of studies and stuff done on how pornography really damages like the creativity of one's like sexual libido, I feel like?
Because I used to have to create these worlds in my head, you know, which would then resonate in my body, I would feel like.
I mean, I think so much of it comes down to your ability to control, and that if any addiction to a degree out of control is going to limit you.
Whatever that is.
I mean, if you're addicted to food and you blow up, you know?
If you're watching so much pornography that when you think of sex, your mind instantly goes, okay, this is what happens, then yeah, you're going to probably be less creative in sex.
If you're looking at it as an inspiration, or hey, what if I try that with my partner or whatever?
Not necessarily So that perception then is really And in that seeing all these things, but wanting to, okay, I wanna put my own spin on this.
I want to, and also not having that, You know, if it's, okay, I am watching pornography and mission accomplished and that's all I need to do, then yeah, Your own sex life with your partner is not going to flourish.
Right.
If it's inspiration, if it's okay, this is part of the journey, and I'm going to.
I'm going to take a few things here, maybe introduce them over here, see how it goes, maybe, see if they're open to it.
I mean, that's a good point.
One of the tried and true ways of being creative is you take different genres or things and you combine them.
Mix them up.
You know, take this from that, this from that.
Get a mashup, yeah.
You know what I mean?
Applesauce, yeah.
Apple pie.
Western and space.
Oh, yeah.
You know.
Yeah, like Star Warts or something.
That was a bad one.
But I used to think, oh, yeah, a good Space Western.
Did they ever have one?
Star Trek.
Was it a Space Western?
It really was kind of, huh?
They went from, I mean, you take that and you put that in the old Frontiers days in a covered wagon.
It's the same story.
Yeah.
Instead of aliens, just people from Fresno or whatever.
Yeah.
And a lot of the places that went even looked like Fresno a little bit.
Yeah.
I mean, it was just a Western.
They put it in space.
I think that's all we got.
That's great.
Dr. James Kaufman, you're teaching now at UConn.
Yes, professor at University of Connecticut and doing a whole bunch of research on creativity.
You have so many books and stuff, and we'll put a lot of that in the intro whenever we bring you up.
You've got my website and working on a number of different layperson books.
I don't know, after a while doing research, you more and more are having, again, it's the heart attack.
Like, I want to do stuff in the real world.
I want to actually help people be creative instead of just.
Well, it's interesting because, yeah, it's like a lot of people don't go to a school book place.
You don't go to a campus bookstore to get books, you know, a lot of times.
So you go to another, you know, you'll go to other outlets and stuff to get books.
And so, yeah, creativity is my favorite thing, man.
So I appreciate you coming here and talking to me about it today.
And I've often felt that people who are really successful in different areas know a lot more about creativity than they think they do.
Comedy is one of the top ones.
I'm actually quite excited about this because just to hear your thoughts, kind of pick your brain a little bit.
Oh, thanks, man.
Yeah, I just always thought I was just very aware, like too much sometimes.
And so I was always creating different scenarios of what could go on because I was aware of what was happening so much.
Like, okay, this person's over there.
This is going on.
You know, the sun is setting.
This is happening right now.
What are we going to do?
What's going to happen?
You know, mom's feeling like this.
It just was always so many things to balance that the awareness was always heightened.
I felt like when I was young.
And so that made me, suddenly when I was sitting there writing with a piece of paper and thinking about things, there was all these things where there was an awareness for them in the page.
There was an awareness for everything could be a character.
You know, like the son had a, had a, you know, it had aspirations and, you know, and the mailman, you know, maybe played jazz.
You know, there was just different things going on whenever life happened.
You observe.
But some of it became exhausting, though.
Just the other side of it, where you're just overwhelmed by constantly worried about what people are thinking and feeling and not knowing that you're okay.
So it puts you in like an unsafe space, you know?
So the creativity you build in, it's very negative almost because your brain creates a lot of like scary situations.
It's a danger of, I mean, some of it can be perfectionism.
Some of it can be, I mean, imagination can be used for less positive things if you're worrying about what could be.
And then if you're very creative, you can imagine all this stuff.
I mean, how many times have people said, well, what's the worst that could happen?
Well, if you're, if you can imagine all that stuff, it's harder.
Yeah.
For me, it's, yeah, yeah.
Or if you're a lot, somebody who's thinking a lot.
And so much of that is just being able to channel it, being able to, okay, well, I know I have all these ideas ping pong in my brain.
The more that you can express, channel in these more proactive ways, you know, the more you can let the other parts of your brain kind of just calm, calm.
Yeah.
It really is like petting a cat.
Like, stay there, buckle, stay there.
Yeah.
Anything else you wanted to talk about, James?
Oh, man.
So much, but not hopefully another time in the future.
I would love to have you back another time, huh?
Super.
And there's so much stuff that, I mean.
I'd love to listen back and even come up with new things to think of.
Yeah, because there's so much.
Does creativity have to be good or bad?
Can it be bad?
You know, all sorts of stuff that.
Well, yeah, I mean, some people have created some of the worst shit ever.
The Blimp.
Remember that machine?
Oh, yeah.
Remember Hitler?
But that's a question.
Was he creative?
Right.
So funny because I thought about that earlier today a little bit.
I was thinking about what could be creativity.
And I mean...
Isn't there famous, like Pandora's box?
Isn't that a thing of, it's basically just a thing of arts and crafts.
Somebody just cracked you open a little box of Michael's craft store.
I feel like something good or bad could come out of there.
And it's creativity is not creativity is not good or bad inherently.
It's like, is being smart good or bad?
I mean, it's good for you, but if everybody was smarter, would the world be a better place?
No.
Nobody would be driving a Corvette either, I'll tell you that.
If everybody was more creative, would the world be a better place?
Yeah, I bet.
Maybe.
But then it might become that everybody's trying to out-creative each other at such a level where it's just getting ridiculous.
As well as, you know, you'd have all the serial killers be that much more creative.
You'd have all the people being that more creative on how to screw you over in business deals.
Oh, that'd be the worst.
We can't handle it anymore out here.
I mean, the studio executives would be that much more creative in, well, you can assign the rights for this.
I mean, you have to think of it all those layers.
Well, if everybody just becomes more creative, I mean, that means the bad people do too.
And it's, is that good?
Is it bad?
I mean, some of it's how we choose to use our creativity, you know, this practical way.
I mean, like what we almost started with, of you wanting to use your creativity to make people happy, make them feel better.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a wonderful positive thing.
There's other people out there who aren't going to be thinking that.
Yeah, that's the dark arts.
That's what we go and fight all the time.
It's, yeah, sometimes it's like, and then when things become more of a business too, it gets less.
Yeah.
It's still the same, but it just gets, I don't know, it gets a little different, you know?
But that's okay.
It just, I think some of it, sometimes there's a level of correction and stuff like that.
But yeah, when money gets involved in creativity, then what happens?
It impacts why you're being creative sometimes, and that's the scary part.
Yeah.
I mean, because so many of us are creative because we love it, and there's other reasons.
But yeah, once money starts playing, you know, and again, not that money's bad.
Money's great.
Money's great.
I'm in favor of money.
They keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
That's what they say.
But you're only audience.
But that struggle, there's some value.
There's some, you just have so many more paints in your Sherwin-Williams when you got that struggle going.
You know, when you have some, when you can find that motivation.
But like you're saying, like that balance, you know.
Yeah.
We're going to work on keeping the balance.
And Dr. Kaufman, we'd love to have you back.
I would love to come back.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for coming.
You bet.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking break and let myself all wine shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my story, I will stay here just for me.
Thank you.
And I will move away too fast on a runaway train with a hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
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You have three new voice messages.
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Jamain.
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