This was really helpful to read. Thanks for putting it together.
Though spending hours at my writing desk each day certainly produces work (sometimes quite good work), the really original stuff comes through breaks from my routine, spontaneous postures of openness, or paying enough attention to see what was previously overlooked—that which lies outside the box. Finding time for dedicated and intentional work as well as open attentive participation with the uncontrollable feels like the path.
This describes my experience as well. Tempermentally I take a very controlled approach to art and craft, focusing more on technique than inspiration. But some years back when I developed a line of jewelry I intentionally chose a method of construction that was impossible to fully control and which leaned heavily on the voice of the materials. The process was wonderfully freeing and the result was far more original than anything I could have 'designed' from scratch.
Perhaps another way to frame this is to say the conscientious person tries to bring their very best into the relationship with everything that exists outside of themselves, but then with openness recognizes that everything they do is in dialogue with and contingent upon that landscape.
There is much to be said for the balance of conscientiousness and inspiration. Ralph Gibson is a very well respected photographer who has been shooting for decades. He learned, in part, under Dorothea Lange (who shot the famous "Migrant Mother" photo in the 30s). One of her criticisms of Gibson's early work was that it lacked coherence, a "point of departure" as she termed it. By this she meant it was all over the map, relying too much on inspiration of the moment, and lacking in intent. To this day, Gibson says he never touches his camera without an idea of what he specifically is going to shoot. He cited, for instance, a study of the limitations of shooting only using a mild telephoto for a time, so that he had to concentrate on what that sort of compression of field and view actually did. Then he could be creative within that limitation.
I've heard others described being too inspiration-driven as "all fire and no hearth". This is, of course, chaos.
There is another adage too: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." And stealing, in this case, is an intentional act - you are re-using another's concept and making it your own. But again, this actually takes work and exercise to achieve, particularly if what you're "stealing" is itself already high craft. Hillary White, on her excellent substack on the history of liturgical art, talks often of how the great masters spent years just copying their own teachers and learning skills before ever being allowed to work on their own. This applies to cooking too - when I was teaching my kids to cook, I taught them "Learn how it all works and stick to recipes, and then you'll be able to cook without a cookbook."
"Now, it’s not that there aren’t people like that—geniuses, non-conformists, iconoclasts, muscled with natural talent, who do see what others miss, do dare to break from norms and soar like eagles.
Yet some originals aren’t eagles. And never will be.
Some are just turtles who manage to fly."
I work for a homeschool organization and I shared this bit with my coworker who writes our weekly newsletter. She is going to use it, with proper attribution, of course, in our next newsletter. I hope so much to get questions from our kids about the "turtles who manage to fly."
Thank you so much for continually challenging me with your writing. Both you and your wife are among the reasons I continue to subscribe to Substack!
So glad to hear that, Kristen! Cultivating conscientiousness goes hand-in-hand with homeschooling (I say this as a veteran homeschooling parent with two kids already in university). We have never regretted encouraging persistence and hard work, while at the same time encouraging creative use of the abundant free time that homeschooling can offer. Funny thing is, as cultivating conscientiousness occurs at a process level in myriad ways, kids sometimes might not realize it’s being developed, as there is a tendency to focus on the products/outcomes of classwork, rather than the good work habits that go into it.
"What often makes people original isn’t just their ability to depart from what is normative, but their ability to understand the normative well enough that they know how to depart from it."
And understanding the normative well enough takes time that many people now, don't want to spend. They want the quick how-to on their project/goal rather than learning the skills themselves.
I don't claim it's an accurate account, but I know people who argue this is what happened with movements in music and art. Those who experimented with whole tone scales or impressionism understood the norm to create something new, while subsequent generations simply wanted the "new thing" without the foundation, the understanding.
Perhaps the issue of people wanting a quick solution/instant production is nothing new... just taking on new forms in our digital age.
“Those generations of tonsured men who lived in chilly, medieval monasteries dutifully preserving Western culture after the collapse of the Roman Empire..” really hit home. And that “with the world going the way it is we might need another generation of those soon”
The idea that Democritus atomic theory is the only thing of his creations that came to us, and even that on a slender thread: in the single volume of Lucretius’s poem that was held in one singe German library, that one single intrepid book hunter eventually found and save from extinction… is as mind-blowing as it is tragic.
I remember reading about it in the “The Darkening Age” by Catherine Nixey, in 2018 and then it fully downed on me how we are about to experience the loss of the same magnitude. The dire need to maintain that slender thread and *those* tonsured men kept looming over me ever since..
This really speaks to me. True creativity requires both knowing a field inside out (conscientousness) and then imagining how to transcend its boundaries (openness).
This was such a welcome encouragement to those of us who are trying to develop more Conscientiousness! I am someone who doesn't naturally score super high on Conscientiousness (I have a very high level of Openness, conversely) and have been focusing in recent years on how to cultivate more of it in my life, as I notice the positive impact Conscientiousness has upon others, in their creative endeavors and spiritual lives.
I've been seeing this study on personality traits in young people making the rounds a lot these days. What's very concerning to me is the overall reduction in nearly ALL personality traits -- everything aside from Neuroticism. Does this mean that young people just have less overall "personality" these days? I wonder how those results are being interpreted.
Probably more research needs to be done to confirm just how much of a drop in conscientiousness there has been, and how the other traits might be shifting. Generally, personality traits don’t normally change a whole lot—and if they have in recent years, it probably has less to do with actual change in the substrates of personality, and much more to do with how living life through a device for 7+ hours per day can influence the expression of personality.
I’m currently reading Byung-chul Han’s “The Burnout Society” and this resonates a lot with his exploration of the vita activa versus the vita contemplativa - that is, a society with no constraints that produces neuroticism about what one *could* be doing versus one with constraints that allow the flourishing of true contemplation (the freedom not to do), which can unlock true creativity.
Recently, I googled "three best physicists of all time." The consensus seems to be that Newton and and Einstein were the top two, but the third best was a matter of some debate. Galileo was mentioned, but also notable physicists like Bohr, Planck, and a few more were seen as possible candidates. What struck me was that most of these physicists were living and doing their work before the modern technologies that dominate our daily lives were invented. No computers, no AI, no nothing. Apparently, it is possible to be a great scientist with only paper, pencils and chalkboards as your working tools. Who would have thought it? This all got me wondering about the side effects of our information and communication technologies. Yes, they enable us to accomplish much in a very short time frame, but at what cost to our minds and our ability to deeply focus and concentrate, which are necessary to the creative process? Are we still able to produce the types of minds capable of the breakthroughs of a Newton or Galileo, or have we've become too distracted? I got my first cell phone when I was 66, and I was surprised how quickly my concentration was negatively impacted. I literally can't imagine how the minds of young people who've used cell phones all their lives have been altered. Probably not in a good way.
Wonderful writing, Peco! The kind of essay that drew me to Substack but is in ever shorter supply of late.
Your probing of Conscientiousness and Openness makes me think of my consulting with CEOs and COOs who couldn't work together. The CEOs were open leaders (Do the right thing) and the COOs were conscientious managers (Do things right). They had different minds/talents and tended to disrespect and compete with each other. My proposal that they embodied a perfect dialectic about running a successful company and would each fail alone always caught their attention (if not always their buy-in!).
I resonate with this. I can think of a couple of occasions when I had to work closely with people very differently from me. The product of our work was excellent—even though we got on each other’s nerves in the process!
I'd rather feed the human being with food as energy needed to create than a 20 million square foot AI data center in Utah that will require a gigawatt of power plants to be "creative".
Liked this piece. I use Firefox BTW. Been plodding to get off of the Gates Microsoft and will do so soon..
Great article! I loved this part: “The deep experiences, arising from conscientious diligence and hard work, is what gives us expertise in a certain field, whether art, business, or science; but the addition of broad experiences helps us to see things in new ways.”
I have been trying to put my finger on what my favorite writers have in common and I think this is it, the broad experiences that help them see things in new ways.
As a newlywed, my husband noted that I was not a "go with the flow" type of person (not surprising from an only child who didn't marry until 30). I sat with this observation for a long time, and the image that finally came to me was one of the dutiful animals you name above: the beaver. "She doesn't go with the flow," I told my husband. "She works hard to create a home, and in doing so changes the flow of the river itself." That continues to be a guiding image for my life and work, although I confess that my conscientiousness (always one of my highest traits on all assessments), has suffered over the last few years. Like you, Peco, I also finished my work early in third grade so that I would have time to daydream.That strategy served me well through my 20s, which I spent earning a PhD and taking a post as a literature professor. But with three children (one in a hybrid homeschool), the laundry, the dishes, the suppers, the 'oikosdespoting" (1 Timothy 5:14) no amount of diligence ever yields the time I once treasured to create. There are ways, of course (I write this having risen at 5 to write), but it has been the greatest loneliness I've ever known, trying to create with neither colleagues nor local community to encourage and support.
This was really helpful to read. Thanks for putting it together.
Though spending hours at my writing desk each day certainly produces work (sometimes quite good work), the really original stuff comes through breaks from my routine, spontaneous postures of openness, or paying enough attention to see what was previously overlooked—that which lies outside the box. Finding time for dedicated and intentional work as well as open attentive participation with the uncontrollable feels like the path.
Thanks again!
This describes my experience as well. Tempermentally I take a very controlled approach to art and craft, focusing more on technique than inspiration. But some years back when I developed a line of jewelry I intentionally chose a method of construction that was impossible to fully control and which leaned heavily on the voice of the materials. The process was wonderfully freeing and the result was far more original than anything I could have 'designed' from scratch.
Perhaps another way to frame this is to say the conscientious person tries to bring their very best into the relationship with everything that exists outside of themselves, but then with openness recognizes that everything they do is in dialogue with and contingent upon that landscape.
Well said!
There is much to be said for the balance of conscientiousness and inspiration. Ralph Gibson is a very well respected photographer who has been shooting for decades. He learned, in part, under Dorothea Lange (who shot the famous "Migrant Mother" photo in the 30s). One of her criticisms of Gibson's early work was that it lacked coherence, a "point of departure" as she termed it. By this she meant it was all over the map, relying too much on inspiration of the moment, and lacking in intent. To this day, Gibson says he never touches his camera without an idea of what he specifically is going to shoot. He cited, for instance, a study of the limitations of shooting only using a mild telephoto for a time, so that he had to concentrate on what that sort of compression of field and view actually did. Then he could be creative within that limitation.
I've heard others described being too inspiration-driven as "all fire and no hearth". This is, of course, chaos.
There is another adage too: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." And stealing, in this case, is an intentional act - you are re-using another's concept and making it your own. But again, this actually takes work and exercise to achieve, particularly if what you're "stealing" is itself already high craft. Hillary White, on her excellent substack on the history of liturgical art, talks often of how the great masters spent years just copying their own teachers and learning skills before ever being allowed to work on their own. This applies to cooking too - when I was teaching my kids to cook, I taught them "Learn how it all works and stick to recipes, and then you'll be able to cook without a cookbook."
"great masters spent years just copying their own teachers and learning skills before ever being allowed to work on their own"
Great insight! So often we impatiently want to get to the finished product, not realizing how much work "mastery" takes.
"Now, it’s not that there aren’t people like that—geniuses, non-conformists, iconoclasts, muscled with natural talent, who do see what others miss, do dare to break from norms and soar like eagles.
Yet some originals aren’t eagles. And never will be.
Some are just turtles who manage to fly."
I work for a homeschool organization and I shared this bit with my coworker who writes our weekly newsletter. She is going to use it, with proper attribution, of course, in our next newsletter. I hope so much to get questions from our kids about the "turtles who manage to fly."
Thank you so much for continually challenging me with your writing. Both you and your wife are among the reasons I continue to subscribe to Substack!
So glad to hear that, Kristen! Cultivating conscientiousness goes hand-in-hand with homeschooling (I say this as a veteran homeschooling parent with two kids already in university). We have never regretted encouraging persistence and hard work, while at the same time encouraging creative use of the abundant free time that homeschooling can offer. Funny thing is, as cultivating conscientiousness occurs at a process level in myriad ways, kids sometimes might not realize it’s being developed, as there is a tendency to focus on the products/outcomes of classwork, rather than the good work habits that go into it.
"What often makes people original isn’t just their ability to depart from what is normative, but their ability to understand the normative well enough that they know how to depart from it."
And understanding the normative well enough takes time that many people now, don't want to spend. They want the quick how-to on their project/goal rather than learning the skills themselves.
I don't claim it's an accurate account, but I know people who argue this is what happened with movements in music and art. Those who experimented with whole tone scales or impressionism understood the norm to create something new, while subsequent generations simply wanted the "new thing" without the foundation, the understanding.
Perhaps the issue of people wanting a quick solution/instant production is nothing new... just taking on new forms in our digital age.
"...just taking on new forms in our digital age."
I think you're right!
“Those generations of tonsured men who lived in chilly, medieval monasteries dutifully preserving Western culture after the collapse of the Roman Empire..” really hit home. And that “with the world going the way it is we might need another generation of those soon”
The idea that Democritus atomic theory is the only thing of his creations that came to us, and even that on a slender thread: in the single volume of Lucretius’s poem that was held in one singe German library, that one single intrepid book hunter eventually found and save from extinction… is as mind-blowing as it is tragic.
I remember reading about it in the “The Darkening Age” by Catherine Nixey, in 2018 and then it fully downed on me how we are about to experience the loss of the same magnitude. The dire need to maintain that slender thread and *those* tonsured men kept looming over me ever since..
This really speaks to me. True creativity requires both knowing a field inside out (conscientousness) and then imagining how to transcend its boundaries (openness).
Thank you for another inspiring essay.
This was such a welcome encouragement to those of us who are trying to develop more Conscientiousness! I am someone who doesn't naturally score super high on Conscientiousness (I have a very high level of Openness, conversely) and have been focusing in recent years on how to cultivate more of it in my life, as I notice the positive impact Conscientiousness has upon others, in their creative endeavors and spiritual lives.
I've been seeing this study on personality traits in young people making the rounds a lot these days. What's very concerning to me is the overall reduction in nearly ALL personality traits -- everything aside from Neuroticism. Does this mean that young people just have less overall "personality" these days? I wonder how those results are being interpreted.
Probably more research needs to be done to confirm just how much of a drop in conscientiousness there has been, and how the other traits might be shifting. Generally, personality traits don’t normally change a whole lot—and if they have in recent years, it probably has less to do with actual change in the substrates of personality, and much more to do with how living life through a device for 7+ hours per day can influence the expression of personality.
I’m currently reading Byung-chul Han’s “The Burnout Society” and this resonates a lot with his exploration of the vita activa versus the vita contemplativa - that is, a society with no constraints that produces neuroticism about what one *could* be doing versus one with constraints that allow the flourishing of true contemplation (the freedom not to do), which can unlock true creativity.
Nicely put – creativity “unlocked” by constraints! Who would have thought?
Recently, I googled "three best physicists of all time." The consensus seems to be that Newton and and Einstein were the top two, but the third best was a matter of some debate. Galileo was mentioned, but also notable physicists like Bohr, Planck, and a few more were seen as possible candidates. What struck me was that most of these physicists were living and doing their work before the modern technologies that dominate our daily lives were invented. No computers, no AI, no nothing. Apparently, it is possible to be a great scientist with only paper, pencils and chalkboards as your working tools. Who would have thought it? This all got me wondering about the side effects of our information and communication technologies. Yes, they enable us to accomplish much in a very short time frame, but at what cost to our minds and our ability to deeply focus and concentrate, which are necessary to the creative process? Are we still able to produce the types of minds capable of the breakthroughs of a Newton or Galileo, or have we've become too distracted? I got my first cell phone when I was 66, and I was surprised how quickly my concentration was negatively impacted. I literally can't imagine how the minds of young people who've used cell phones all their lives have been altered. Probably not in a good way.
Wonderful writing, Peco! The kind of essay that drew me to Substack but is in ever shorter supply of late.
Your probing of Conscientiousness and Openness makes me think of my consulting with CEOs and COOs who couldn't work together. The CEOs were open leaders (Do the right thing) and the COOs were conscientious managers (Do things right). They had different minds/talents and tended to disrespect and compete with each other. My proposal that they embodied a perfect dialectic about running a successful company and would each fail alone always caught their attention (if not always their buy-in!).
I resonate with this. I can think of a couple of occasions when I had to work closely with people very differently from me. The product of our work was excellent—even though we got on each other’s nerves in the process!
I'd rather feed the human being with food as energy needed to create than a 20 million square foot AI data center in Utah that will require a gigawatt of power plants to be "creative".
Liked this piece. I use Firefox BTW. Been plodding to get off of the Gates Microsoft and will do so soon..
Great article! I loved this part: “The deep experiences, arising from conscientious diligence and hard work, is what gives us expertise in a certain field, whether art, business, or science; but the addition of broad experiences helps us to see things in new ways.”
I have been trying to put my finger on what my favorite writers have in common and I think this is it, the broad experiences that help them see things in new ways.
As a newlywed, my husband noted that I was not a "go with the flow" type of person (not surprising from an only child who didn't marry until 30). I sat with this observation for a long time, and the image that finally came to me was one of the dutiful animals you name above: the beaver. "She doesn't go with the flow," I told my husband. "She works hard to create a home, and in doing so changes the flow of the river itself." That continues to be a guiding image for my life and work, although I confess that my conscientiousness (always one of my highest traits on all assessments), has suffered over the last few years. Like you, Peco, I also finished my work early in third grade so that I would have time to daydream.That strategy served me well through my 20s, which I spent earning a PhD and taking a post as a literature professor. But with three children (one in a hybrid homeschool), the laundry, the dishes, the suppers, the 'oikosdespoting" (1 Timothy 5:14) no amount of diligence ever yields the time I once treasured to create. There are ways, of course (I write this having risen at 5 to write), but it has been the greatest loneliness I've ever known, trying to create with neither colleagues nor local community to encourage and support.
That sounds challenging, Bethany! I wish you the best in trying to find creative openings in your life.