In alignment with Atwood and Stolorow, I would propose that the multi-step movement from nothingness to something ultimately involves this human interaction. We find human interaction in the invention of inexpensive tools, creation of the silicon chip, and innovation in the organizational crevice. Even the sculpture is considering the image of David in the marble as this biblical figure would be seen by the viewing public. Atwood and Stolorow suggest that this interaction with other people is central to all constructions of reality. In that sense, all human views of reality are creative. And all products of creativity are fashioned directly or indirectly through interactions with other people.
Persona and Shadow
The Jungians have something similar to say about the nature of creativity as based in the interplay between our inner world, our outer world, and our relationship with other people. Applying this Jungian perspective, Van Eenwyk (1997, Pg. 33) sets the stage for considering the creative act. He frames this act as based on a tension existing between two oppositional intrapsychic entities. There is the Persona, which is directed outward toward one’s relationship with other people and the Shadow, which attends to matters internal to the psyche:
“A tension arises between who we are and who the environment wants us to be. The persona is a structure of the psyche based on the latter. . . . The persona consists of:
a complicated system of relations between the individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. [Jung, Two Essays, CW 7, par 305]
The feeling-tones of the persona revolve around acceptance and rejection. In putting together a persona we learn to sift out of our personalities those characteristics to which the environment reacts negatively, and to emphasize those to which it responds positively. Consequently, personas vary according to the environments they are meant to serve.
All that which by nature we might be but aren’t due to the demands of our surroundings, comprises the shadow. By this Jung meant:
the “negative” side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and contents of the personal unconscious. [Jung, Two Essays, CW 7, par 103, note 5]
Like the persona, the shadow is a complex, whose feeling-tones also revolve around acceptance and rejection. Because the shadow is built up from personality traits that are not acceptable to those around us, it may contain many of the essentials of our individuality.”
