Creativity and Sensitivity

In my previous article on Creativity and Self-destructiveness, I wrote about the receptivity and sensitivity of creativity. I'm not entirely certain though, whether some people are naturally more sensitive than others, or whether other factors are at play. Certainly, a persons past and present experiences, can make them sensitive to certain triggers, which can bring back feelings or memories of things like abuse or bullying. Sensitivity, can also mean sensitivity towards others, and which is also a part of creativity, and our ability to love and care for ourselves and others.

Part of the creative process, is a filtering of masses of perception into smaller parts, and which sometimes gets mistaken as misperception of facts, or as physical, emotional, and intellectual dissociation. At the same time, there is a selection process to creativity, which enlarges certain details for atmosphere and effect, whilst there is also an enlargement of the whole.

I'm also interested in whether being very sensitive, can lead to more erroneous or more accurate objective description of facts, sensations, thoughts, and feelings. This whole area doesn't seem to be looked into much. I think that whilst the raw masses of information, received at the initial stages of creativity, are disorganised and over-lapping, that at some stage a structuring process takes place, and which involves more elemental and holistic thinking, and with attention to subtle and finer details. This is certainly required for effective studying, learning, teaching, and creating.

Paranoia is another area which interests me. Paranoia is, in a way, a social thought process, because it involves being connected to others, albeit in a negative way. I think paranoia and delusions occur when the details are enlarged or exaggerated, but the background and factual information processes are blocked or omitted. It does seem to me that when a person is deluded, that they are more sensitive to experiences, but are unable to connect a detail or details to the whole, including factual information.

Fetishism is another area of some relevance. Fetishism, is not, as is often assumed, a splitting off of an area or part of the body from the whole. In its initial stages, it may be a kind of split or fixation, but it is simply about appreciating the beauty of an area of the body, which is usually overlooked or not aesthetically or sexually appreciated. In this way, it is about appreciating the beauty and sexual attraction of the whole body, and a fetish can very easily become integrated into an appreciation of the whole.

There is a view in medical psychiatry, that people with so-called schizophrenia can't filter out experiences and information they receive, unlike other people. This view says that because diagnosed schizophrenic people can't filter out experiences and information, that they are overwhelmed with experiences which oppress them, and distort their thoughts and feelings. This is one reason why heavy psychiatric medication is prescribed to voice hearers and others.

There is a filtering process to creativity, and which can take place at some stage towards more objective thinking or recovery. A filter is different to block, but sometimes the so-called filter is indeed a block, and can be just something like ignorance, prejudice, discrimination, or narrow mindedness.