John Cleese: Creativity is a Matter of Working Longer

How was  John Cleese able to generate so many creative scripts for the Monty Python Flying Circus? He worked longer hours, which required that he put up with more discomfort. That was his formula, which he discusses in this short video:

In 2020, Cleese wrote a wrote a short and cheerful guide to creativity called Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide.

Here are a few of my favorite ideas from his book:

Definition of creativity: "Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative."

"Creativity is elusive like a dim star – sometimes you can’t see it until we look away."

"Creativity often come when you least expect it. For instance, while leeping or taking a walk. To be creative, you often need to work in silence."

Creativity comes quietly – often it only whispers at you.

I began to realise that my unconscious was working on stuff all the time without my being consciously aware of it.And that's the problem with the unconscious. It is unconscious. The language of the unconscious is not verbal. It’s like the language of dreams. It shows you images, it gives you feelings, it nudges you around without you immediately knowing what it’s getting at.

There were only two differences between the creative and the uncreative architects. Creative architects knew how to play.Creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.

The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about.

Creativity may come from inside, as you suddenly remember something that you’ve forgotten to do, or worry that time is running out, or that you don’t think you’re clever enough to solve whatever problem it is that you’re trying to deal with. This can paralyse you.

It is, however, very important that when you first have a new idea, you don’t get critical too soon. New and “woolly” ideas shouldn’t be attacked by your logical brain until they’ve had time to grow, to become clearer and sturdier. New ideas are rather like small creatures. They’re easily strangled.

I'll close with two more quotes about creativity:

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." Chuck Close

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” Attributed to Pablo Picasso.

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Ira Glass and the taste-ability gap.

Creation is daunting. Partly because the drive to create is always rooted in admiration for others' creations. What writer hasn't struggled against inadvertently ghost-writing their favorite author? What aspiring auteur, poet, or painter doesn't begin with work that is heartrendingly derivative of others' better attempts? Or worse-- what creative person hasn't struggled to make something 'great', something 'great' as the art they adore, only to find they can't quite compete? And who doesn't infer from these failings that maybe they weren't cut out to be a creative type after all? Ira Glass, creator and longtime host of This American Life, says there's a very simple reason for the head-bashing frustrations of early creative production. Simply put: if you are interested in creating something, it's probably because you have immaculate taste. Taste that outpaces your own ability. At least, at first. Glass says:

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
I found this snippet in a video interview with Glass (below) a year or two ago, and I find it incredibly inspiring. Glass' view of creativity suggests that even if you lack innate, immediate creative ability, you are not a lost cause-- and that, in fact, a little creative self-loathing may be a sign of good aesthetic instincts. It also suggests there is a solution to the problem of making unsatisfying dreck: just keep making more. And more. And more. This wisdom is especially powerful in context. As a radio producer, Glass was a very late bloomer. He worked in public radio for twenty years before conceiving of This American Life; he readily admits (in another portion of his interview, and on his program) that the first seven years of his radio work was deeply underwhelming and often poorly-paced.  He'll readily admit that his early stories were bad, and that even he knew they were bad, and that this tormented him. Only through tireless efforts and the cultivation of exceptional taste was he able to develop and bloom. And he bloomed big:  This American Life is one of the most widely-heard public radio programs ever, with 1.7 million weekly listeners, and has topped the Itunes podcast chart continuously for years. If Ira had given up after a few years of shoddy radio stories, we'd all have missed out on TAL's  hundreds of hours of thoughtful, poignant, high-quality public radio. I found this interview snippet a little over a year ago, and Glass' words of experience have galvanized me ever since. Whenever I write something that strikes me as uninspiring or derivative dreck, I reassure myself it's a matter of taste, and time. And more time.

Continue ReadingIra Glass and the taste-ability gap.