Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Understanding the creative class (Excerpts from “Creativity” by Mihaly)

Understanding the characteristics of creative people is an important topic that one needs to recognize and consider. Many misunderstanding are sorted out by understanding some of these behaviors.
Creative individuals are often considered odd – or even arrogant, selfish and ruthless. It is important to keep in mind that these are not traits of creative people, but traits that the rest of us attribute to them on the basis of our perceptions. When we meet a person who focuses all of his attention on physics or music and ignores us and forgets our names, we call that person “arrogant” even though he may be extremely humble and friendly if he could only spare attention from his pursuit.