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Aaron Kreigh Hooper's avatar

A tension that comes up a lot in my professional work as a graphic designer is between what John Cleese called the open and closed mode (there's a talk on Creativity in Management you can find on YouTube). The open mode is playful, humorous, exploratory, while the closed mode is tighter, more hierarchical. Closed mode is the mindset most people have in business contexts. I think there's a little overlap between this and explore/exploit.

As a designer, I have to adhere to brand guidelines and the constraints of the project brief. But ideally, I'll have enough room to play around and explore. In the past, I've even intentionally broken the rules in the early stages of a project or purposely made something that looked horrible just to get myself to open up. My favorite place to be is right at the edge, pushing hard against the constraints. (Unfortunately, a lot of my recent day job work hasn't given me as much room to explore.)

Writing is similar I think - there's a tension between creation and editing. George Saunders has been very helpful here. His book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is incredible, as is his substack Story Club.

Thanks for this post, Austin. There's a lot of meaty stuff here I want to go back and explore.

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Frances O'Roark Dowell's avatar

This immediately brought to mind Keats’ notion of “negative capability,” which he wrote about in a letter to his brothers:

“several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – “

There’s a tension there, I think, and it’s a very difficult position to maintain. I live on a tree-lined street (big oaks, mostly), and sometimes when I’m walking toward home and there’s a light breeze in the branches, I feel like I’m caught up in some sort of mystery. I once described it to a friend as walking down The Avenue of the Holy Ghost.

But only for a moment. There’s always that kill-joy voice in my head saying, “They’re only trees.” I wish I could stay balanced in the moment for longer--the moment of being in the world and outside of it at the same time--but it’s hard.

As for negative capability and creativity--I think when I'm writing really well or totally immersed in a creative project of any sort, there's also that tension/balance between a kind of dream state and a very practical application of craft. You need both, I think, to make something really interesting.

I hope this makes sense. I have Covid, so it’s possible I’m rambling like a madwoman.

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