Pictures in our Minds - The Dynamics of the Creative Process
Saberi Roy
First published in The Poetica Magazine, August 2010.
The process of creation as in art or poetry or even science could be described in many ways although the creative process itself has some core common components irrespective of whether the creation is in sciences or in the arts. As a writer involved in both scientific and artistic writing, I have personally felt the difference in my thought processes and in the way I create a scientific document as opposed to an artistic piece.
Creation essentially involves evoking emotions and it is the emotions that are used along with insights to provide unique images. Creation almost always has to do with visualization, we have strong images in our minds and these images may not be well formed and our mind seeks a closure or a gestalt and wants to see the whole picture of these images that are not even clear to us when they first appear.
So creation is about trying to complete these incomplete images or pictures we have in our minds and evoked by emotions. Emotion in creation figures both in the sciences and in the arts. We may think that science is about rationalization, about reason but finally it is the beauty of the scientific theory that appeals to a scientist, so the primary role of emotion is revealed even in sciences. The scientist accepts and studies the most harmonious and beautiful theories and this is not about reason but about emotions. Just like the scientist seeks beauty in the theory, the artist also seeks to paint or write about strong emotions and about things that stir these emotions. Thus the trigger for both the scientists and the artist seems to be the same, they are motivated by a similar emotional need to create and to understand or shape their images through emotions.
I have often wondered why creative writing as generally understood has to do exclusively with short stories or poems or novel writing. Even scientific or political writing which are strictly analytical fall within the premise of creative writing as both the scientist and the artist creates something with a new idea or a new concept.
But is there any difference at all between the process of scientific creation and the artistic creation? Let us take the example of creating an equation, such as Einstein's E=mc2. Einstein first started with this strong image of one equation that could define many things. He was looking for beauty, a comprehensive simple beautiful theory so the main motivation was to find something simple and beautiful that would explain all or many complex processes. Yet to reach this, he had to break down every step of his thought process that led to the equation. Thus in science (or any other analytical writing) there is this essential need to recognize every step of thinking so that every element of the theory is revealed. Scientific creation is thus analytical, it breaks up the thought process and thus it is divergent. The artistic process of creation moves towards the whole and is convergent and more synthetic because the poet or the artist is concerned only about the entire image in his mind and how this image could be transformed to a whole work of creation.
Beauty or our sense of aesthetics is almost the central part of any scientific or artistic discovery because when something appeals to us, we naturally feel it is right. So when a theory appeals to a scientist or a phrase appeals to a poet or a shape appeals to an artist, this theory, or phrase or shape is considered beautiful and it is the beauty inherent in these elements of creation that finally motivates the creator to create.
Thus the process of creation is a process of seeking harmony and beauty and we create because we want to make things beautiful. Anything that is incomplete disturbs us and we create something to complete the pictures we have in our minds. When writing a poem or a short story or even a novel, I am driven by some hazy images and these images disturb me to an extent that I feel compelled to sit and write so that I can give a form, a shape, a structure and most importantly a meaning to these images of the mind.
Whether we create an artistic masterpiece or a theory, a family, a business or society, we are simply looking to finally complete these incomplete images in our minds and in the creative process we choose those options which appeal to us as the most beautiful and the most harmonious of all.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright: Saberi Roy 2010