Backburners and Pop Outs
A description of the creative process often involves a creative idea first residing on “the back burner” of our mind (Ghiselin, 1961/1985). This back burner state is frequently referred to as Incubation. We work on the idea via incubation after initially identifying our interest in considering a new project, concept or desire to solve an impending problem. We might initially try to do this work on a front burner (consciousness) but soon run into roadblocks. A block will often our own rationality, preconceived notions of what the result should be, and/or anxiety that accompanies a strong desire to be creative. We know that anxiety produces rigid thinking (einstellung). This creates the ironic condition of trying too hard to be creative.
We give up our conscious work and assign the work to our back burner (unconsciousness)–usually without realizing that we have made this assignment. Sometime later, the creative idea or product will suddenly come to the surface, being fully formed or at least much further along that it was when we were directly and consciously confronting the task. It is interesting to note, that the finished or almost finished idea or product often “pops out” when we are dreaming, taking a shower, driving our car, playing with our children, dining out at a restaurant, or doing something else that is not easily set aside to record the idea. We race out of the shower, leap out of bed, or pull over the car to find a piece of paper. We disrupt playing with our child to record our idea. We find a paper napkin on which to write our idea at the restaurant.
We might consider this pop-up to be engaged when we are relaxed or distracted. When we are first working consciously on the idea or project it is something. We might be able to see it fully realized, but we know it is “there” somewhere for us to somehow reach or grasp. We are frustrated because it is not immediately available. Our frustration and accompanying self-anger produce anxiety, which as I have noted serves as a powerful roadblock to creativity. It is often necessary that the idea or product emerge from nothingness. We are attending to something else, or we are asleep or relaxed and not attending to anything in particular. And then our creative work appears—with or without the assistance of our Shadow!
In Between and Interacting
While the outcomes of creativity can be observed, the processes associated with creativity are not visible. We can’t view our work occurring in the state of Incubation. Like the processes of waiting, imagining and anticipating, the initial steps in the life of creativity are played out inside our head and heart. From the outside, during these early moments of creativity, we see nothing. Yet, creativity is typically a response to something outside ourselves. There is a block of marble, the demand for a highly condensed storage device, the wish for a less expensive electric saw, an opportunity in the niche of an organization to do something different. Creativity is to be found in between our psyche and the external world.
Furthermore, there is always direct or indirect involvement of other people in the intersect between our inner and outer life. Everything I have suggested about the processes of waiting, imagining, anticipating, and now creativity speaks to a radical, interactive and constructed version of reality. Each of these processes involves an interaction between our inner world and our outer world as mediated through our interactions with other people. Atwood and Stolorow (1979/1993) use the term, inter-subjectivity, when describing the nature of this interplay between the inner world, outer world and interpersonal relationships. For Atwood and Stolorow (1979/1993. p. 189) “human experience is always embedded in an irreducible engagement with others.” We create reality out of nothingness through our interpersonal interactions.
