what does it mean to be a creative intellectual

There tends to be a separation or categorization between right and left brain individuals. This notion stemmed from a publication from 1979 called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and was widely accepted, becoming engrained in our culture. However, in the last decade, researchers have been accumulating evidence debunking the left/right brain concept. From the get go in life, teachers and parents tend to observe their kids' minds and say they are more creative or math oriented. Kids get labeled with their capabilities very early on and they can view themselves this way all through life. The way in which it is introduced can be encouraging or limiting but it does have influence one way or another. The fact is, there are many styles of learning which can be utilized differently depending on what is most effective for that person regardless of if that kid exhibits what is deemed to be more left or right brain thinking.

There is a book titled Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined in which the author and cognitive psychologist, Scott Kaufman, explores how the misguided approach to praise and providing more opportunity to specific children through labeling them as “gifted” can affect them long term. He has a nice sentiment, “we can recognize and value every kind of mind without diminishing the value of others. I do not see intelligence as a zero-sum game: just because someone is talented (whatever that means) by the standards set by society does not mean that the person who isn’t does not have dynamic potential for intellectual functioning. There are so many different paths to success.” The recognition of many paths has started to gain traction in recent years, it still needs to be implemented in society, though it can also be practiced in our individual lives, how we treat ourselves, and how we impact others in our community.

There is a Harvard Business Review article which is not targeted specifically to creativity, though viewpoints in categorical thinking are discussed. They mention categorical thinking can be dangerous in four ways:

“It can lead you to compress the members of a category, treating them as if they were more alike than they are; amplify differences between members of different categories; discriminate, favoring certain categories over others; and fossilize, treating the categorical structure you’ve imposed as if it were static.”

Based in this, we know that categorical thinking of ourselves and others can be damaging in our potential by simply removing ourselves from possibilities through inadvertently compressing characteristics, amplifying our differences, favoring categories, and setting that viewpoint in stone. If we recognize this and slowly train ourselves just in the understanding that we might be accidentally categorizing ourselves or others, we can potentially break this habit down for ourselves. There is hope from the developmental stages as previously discussed as time continues as well. More researchers are looking into how we encourage/discourage creativity in schools and at home.

There is a 2020 publication which includes the framework of Parent–Child Relationships and after school programs and their effects, ultimately stating that more research is needed, but at least we are starting to learn more about this. Broadly, the study states it is believed that the “cultivation of students’ creativity mainly depends on their creative self-efficacy”. They dive into the framework and collect data which they find supports a positive relationship between parent–child relationships and the after-school program to students’ self-efficacy. The after-school program was the most significant variable that affected the student’s creative self-efficacy. The evidence found also supported the non motivating impacts of “negative parent–child relationships” on students’ creative self-efficacy.

You hear too often in adults “oh, I'm not the creative type”, or “oh, I'm not good at xyz”. But it's just placing these limits on ourselves. You don't have to be a widely-known historical great legend to find your own personal creative intellect and curiosity in math, jewelry making, economics, or ceramics art and be a legend in your own life or to the people around you. The point I am making is to not let your fears or what you have been told in the past imprint on you and keep you from trying. Whatever it is that interests you, we live in a world with many tools at our fingertips to learn

Although we can no longer control how we were raised, the parent-child relationships or after school programs we experienced, we can at least acknowledge their impact and redefine our capabilities for ourselves. To objectively understand that you are more in control of your environments now, there may be a possibility to rewire and cultivate an inspiring environment for ourselves and find our creative spark. You don't have to start from scratch on a new hobby to connect some dots you already have. What I mean is finding crossover on things you already know - how patterns in math can be applied to patterns in music - if you love cooking something up with whatever is in your pantry, you know you can make something unsuspecting and you can use that in your work or relationships - finding pathways that not everyone can see.

To be a creative intellectual - as I envision it - is accessing your unique powers of curiosity and resourcefulness. It can look different for you than it does for the next person. You don't have to know everything or name drop fine art tidbits or political stances to be an intellectual. But you can fuel your curiosity and find connections in yourself and how you view things and apply that to everyday problems to find solutions. To apply different learnings to unsuspecting topics. And to find yourself in everything around you and find everything within yourself.

Sources:

Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined by Scott Barry Kaufman

https://hbr.org/2019/09/the-dangers-of-categorical-thinking

10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02237

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