As I sat here composing this blog, it struck me as it has many others, I’m sure, that we just don’t have much time for creativity anymore. Between our work, families, electronics, and other obligations, creativity gets lost in the shuffle, much to our detriment. Women especially have historically been stifled due to the time they don’t have. Martha Freud was said to have not only laid out Sigmund’s clothes every morning but even put his toothpaste on his toothbrush. George Sand worked late at night so as not to cut into her time spent on family obligations. Francine Prose carved out writing time in between the departure and arrival of her children to and from school.
Cooking, cleaning, child rearing, jobs and more have prevented us from really expressing ourselves creatively through art, music, or writing. It can even affect our jobs–hampering our ability to problem solve or think outside the box for creative solutions. Even famous musicians, usually having a natural creative ability, can have problems finding the time to create their art. Notably, Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen’s wife, mentioned in an interview how difficult it was for her to write the music for her solo album because her family life kept interfering and demanding her time in a way that never affected Bruce. It struck me, it’s not that we don’t have creative and talented people in our everyday lives–it’s that we don’t have the time or make the time for that creativity to flow.
Now, with more and more men realizing they need to take part in household duties, they too are experiencing the time crunch. Becoming more of a social norm, taking time for ourselves is represented as a selfish act. However, by not taking the “me time” we deserve, we’re choking out the part of our brain that thrives on creative thinking and problem solving—both necessary for getting into that “state of flow”. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is famed for identifying “state of flow” as “the peak human experience when someone is so absorbed in a meaningful task that time disappears” and believes that this state is necessary to create anything of value.
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