The Later Years
Until very recently, people learned their professions largely from their parents, apprenticing under a practitioner, or self-education through reading and trial-and-error. Formal education at the college and even high-school level was for the select few.
In the present day, university training is standard. It is unthinkable for a person to start in a profession without first having attended a school - which includes both young people who are starting their first careers as well as older ones who are changing professions.
College and Profession
Many interviewees expressed that college and graduate school were a high point in their lives. This was the period in which they began in their professions and found their path. Many had come from smaller towns where they felt odd and disoriented as well as being unable to have the information and resources to pursue their unique interests, so the college setting was liberating.
College is also the first opportunity for a young adult to pursue their own interests and express their unique talents. Primary and secondary education, through the high school years, are focused on establishing a base level of practical skills, homogenizing people and training them to be standardized workers and participants in society.
College is also a place in which hidden talents tend to emerge,. It is not unusual for students to change majors, abandoning a field in which they were originally thought to be talented and interested in favor of a completely different field in which their talent is greater, but which had been deprived.
However, it's noted that individual talent rarely expresses itself even in college. College education is largely about learning the established body of theory, not breaking out on one's own. It is not until a student becomes an upperclassman or graduate student that he is able to pursue his own ideas - and many wash out before this time.
What often distinguishes the creatives from other students is their own focus and drive. Many approach education passively, learning what they are told and doing little more than demonstrating they can understand the information they have been presented. The creative students begin to express their own ideas, very early, and if this is not discouraged, they continue to excel. That is to say: college does not make an uncreative person creative, but provides an incubator for those who already have the spark.
There's a brief mention of a secondary function of the college instructor. It is not merely to deliver domain knowledge to students, but to introduce them as up and coming members of the field to those who are more established. In essence, the professor is building a student's intellectual network.
The task of the student, meanwhile, is not only to learn but to prepare himself for his professional life. The "career student" is one who is adept at learning, but has no direction or purpose for the knowledge he has gained. To be creative, an individual must matriculate from the incubator and enter their chosen profession.
Evidence of the influence of the college can be found in the recent rise in the number of female creatives. Prior to World War II, the gates of academia were largely closed to women - but during the war, the lack of male students caused universities to open to coeds, which allowed women to enter fields that had previously been closed to them.
Supportive Partners
A common factor among interviewees is a long and stable partnership. Most of them married early and remained married to their spouses for thirty or more years. This is contrary to the common myth that creative people are usually promiscuous and fickle in their human ties. In fact, the opposite seems to be more common: creatives enter into lasting and exclusive relationships.
While "a great many" creatives were promiscuous in their early years, they eventually settled into a long-term monogamous relationship. Their studies also suggest that among creatives there is less dalliance, marital infidelity, and sexual experimentation.
A few accounts are given by creatives that attest to the support of their spouses - and while it is common to make such a claim, the nature of their remarks is more than superficial.
Between attending to domestic matters and giving them adequate space, the spouse of a creative facilitates their creative process: "my wife ... clears the way so that I can get down to business and work without interruptions." While it is considered politically incorrect, having a spouse who tends to household matters is quite valuable to the creative individual.
There is also the notion of having a happy domestic life as a means to avoid discontentment and the necessity of devoting mental resources to addressing discontent. To simply have a happy marriage is to have this basic social need fulfilled so that it does not become a distraction from achieving higher goals.
As usual, there are drawbacks. Sometimes, marriage and family can be a distraction from the work, as claimed by an author who explains that a long gap in his creative work was the result of devoting time to children. And of course, there is marital strife that arises when creatives spend long hours and a majority of their attention on their projects. One spouse describes the relationship as "like being a golf widow, but not for Sundays only."
There are instances in which a couple consists of two creative people who work collaboratively in the same field, or who at least inspire one another. However, such instances are rare.
The Making of Careers
While inspiration is often described as being a flashbulb instant of realization, getting to that moment often requires months or years of work. A single article, statement, or equation may be sufficient to represent a brilliant idea - but it generally does not alight on a person out of nowhere. It is one episode that occurs after long hours of assimilation and incubation.
Most successful writers have a sizable "slush pile" of ideas that failed, artists turn out scores of poorly executed canvases in the course of pursuing a masterpiece, and scientists have many failed experiments before a success. This sometimes leads to the conception that one may do things at random and chance upon a success - but the work of creatives shows a progression toward a goal. Their work isn't all of the same quality, but of increasing quality.
Most creative achievements are the culmination of a pursuit that began in childhood or early adulthood. The career of a creative is different than that of a corporate executive - it is not a clear path through well-defined stages, but often a long wandering journey with many false trails before success is achieved.
The creative does not progress from workman to foreman to manager to executive the way that many do in commercial careers. It is very often a long, meandering path in which progress is difficult to remark, particularly because creative work is often done in a sequestered manner, and in which failures or partial successes are not generally evident. (EN: I recall that destruction of imperfect work, particularly among artists and writers, is quite common. Whether it is an act of vanity or frustration, it is not uncommon for creatives to burn their notebooks and sketches, a practice that destroys evidence of their progress.)
It's also in the nature of creatives to be unconventional. A person does not invent or create something by following an established pattern - but in breaking away from the rest and doing something that is unprecedented. Everything up to that point is done in the process of learning the craft, being able to do what is already known. Truly creative work does not begin until the individual branches out in a different direction.
This is also the reason that education does not produce creative minds. Education focuses on teaching the known, not on exploring the unknown. A firm basis in the known theories of a domain is certainly a good starting point for creativity, as few people are creative without such knowledge - but knowing the basics does not make a person creative. Deviating from them and going beyond them does. As such a "good" student who can memorize and repeat stands little chance of doing anything creative, as his work will be faithful to the known.
In terms of career, a creative is by necessity a pioneer. He does not follow the conventions of his domain or field, but challenges them and redefines them. It is common to see that the early works of creatives are not at all creative, but follow existing practices and conventions, often quite badly. His work is recognized when the field considers his deviations to be inspired rather than erroneous.
And so it makes sense that many creatives are not recognized by their field, and some are rejected and castigated for the unorthodoxy of their ideas. Their work is considered botched and imperfect up to the moment that it is recognized as being brilliant.
Generativity
Biologically, one of the goals of adulthood is to pass along one's genes to future generations through the act of reproduction. There is also an intellectual imperative to pass along ideas, values, knowledge, and skills. It's a matter of species survival, but also a method of coping with mortality: knowing that some part of oneself will continue makes it easier to cope with mortality.
The Roman saying "libri aut liberi" suggest the choice of "books or children," implying that it is difficult to produce both. And the typical stereotype of the intellectual is the hermit, virtually celibate, who devotes himself so completely to his work that he neglects to have a family.
However, most respondents had children, and treasured them as their greatest accomplishment, Others sought to spread their ideas through students, followers, and proteges. Quotes are presented from interviewees to substantiate these claims.
In addition to serving as vessels to carry forward ideas, students and followers challenge a creative person's premises and challenge them to present their best work. The student is not merely a passive recipient of knowledge, but a judge of the knowledge he is being offered. The sense of being a role model helps to keep creatives from becoming overconfident and detached from worldly concerns.
Beyond Careers
The author presents some case studies of creatives who became involved in political and social causes, which is often the reason that creatives in repressive cultures find themselves the target of persecution, drawing the ire of governments of the general public, or simply those who disagree with their beliefs. This trend also suggests that creative people aren't removed from the world around them, but are aware of and care about what is happening around them, and are not reluctant to confront the issues that many people are content to ignore or abide.
Part of this comes from the halo effect: creatives who are renowned for their knowledge and accomplishments in their field are considered to be role models in general, and are heeded in areas outside of the ones in which their accomplishments earned them acclaim. It is not uncommon in present-day culture for entertainers such as actors or musicians to be politically outspoken, and to gather followings in spite of their utter lack of credentials in politics.
Hubris is the internal equivalent of the halo effect, in which an individual feels that their accomplishments in one area qualify them to contribute to other areas, in which they are completely uninformed and unqualified. Their adoring followers feed their egos and may even encourage them in specific ways to step beyond the borders of the field in which they are qualified to contribute.
Creative burnout is believed to be the cause of intellectual meandering. A person who has made a great accomplishment doubts in their ability to exceed themselves, or simply becomes tired of working in their field, and branches out to other areas for a change of pace. They very often become institutionalized - they cease being practitioners and instead become consultants or teachers.
Sometimes this can be successful, but very often the creative person realizes their ineptitude in the domains into which they have intruded. A great artist isn't necessarily a great statesman, and a great scientists is not necessarily a great teacher. While they may have the drive to learn to become skilled at their new profession or side interest, they seldom achieve more than mediocrity.
In other instances, the creatives recognize that they are dilettantes in other areas, and do not make a serious effort to become a leader of their new field, but merely see these activities as a break or change of pace from their professional lives - or in some instances, a hobby or part-time job that is done after they have retired from their domain. They have proven themselves, earned their fortunes, and feel they have earned the leisure to dabble.
Inheritance and Succession
When a person effects an change to the field, they tend to have build an institution, and the question of succession or inheritance remains. Who will run the company or direct the laboratory after I have died? These questions become extremely important later in life.
Historically, creative people do not make particularly good choices. Those who inherit their intellectual legacy tend to maintain it without improve it, or botch it entirely. There are few artists whose students have continued their work with much fidelity, and few founders who would not be aghast at the way their company has been changed after their retirement.
A person has to be brilliant in order to successfully carry on the work of a creative master - and if they had such brilliance, chances are that they could win acclaim in their own right rather than by rummaging through the materials left behind by another mind.
Too Little Time
Time is a wealth in which all men are equal, and creative people find they generally do not have enough of it to pursue their interests. They have too many ideas to choose from and time enough for only a few. And even then, they have time enough to develop these areas only so far. The broader a person's interest, the shallower their pursuit.
Many creatives carry on well into old age. At seventy, eighty, or ninety they are still attempting to progress in their domain. Few of them ever retire and completely quit their pursuits. They persist even against the decrepitude of old age, and find it very hard to stop working.
Debilitation and chronic pain can be an obstacle to work, though many of them work through it. Consider Montaigne, who suffered through his life from kidney stones and other disabilities but continued traveling, engaging in politics and writing. Or consider Stephen Hawking, crippled by Gehrig's disease and unable even to control his vocal cords, but who still continues to develop his theories and travel around the world.
These are exceptions, the author admits. Most of the people he interviewed had been very fortunate in their health and ability and have not had to test themselves to see how their creativity would hold up under physical adversity.