Reader, I married a chemist. While he's been odd man out at the writer's table on more than one occasion, god knows his colleagues find my -- occupation? -- strange to say the least. We're very different beings...
I tire of ye-old-crazy-poet stereotype, but today I stumbled across some research that caught my interest. In 2002, Stanford's Department of Psychiatry found that unusually creative people share traits with the mentally ill. (Shocker!) What's interesting about this list is that it outlines characteristics not only exhibited by artists, but scientists as well (Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge University Press):
Personality traits associated with creativity in artists
• Openness to experience, especially fantasy-oriented imagination
• Impulsivity, lack of conscientiousness
• Anxiety, affective illness, emotional sensitivity
• Drive, ambition
• Nonconformity, norm-doubting, independence
• Hostility, aloofness, unfriendliness, lack of warmth
Personality traits associated with creativity in scientists
• Openness to experience, flexibility of thought
• Drive, ambition, achievement
• Self-confidence, dominance, arrogance, hostility
• Autonomy, introversion, independence
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Can't wait to see what K. has to say about this one! Any other artist/scientist lovebirds out there?
Hi Shara,
ReplyDeleteI'm dating a physicist, and I think his capacity for wonder rivals mine. On a Nova science podcast I once heard a man say that scientists stand between the known and the unknown, and that's where I'd like to think I stand as a poet.