Eccentricity or Creativity?

Recently I was facilitating a discussion on the blueprint of our lives. To make the discussion interesting, I created a giant film roll out of an oatmeal canister and embedded a long written message inside the canister for the participants to pull out of the canister. 

To mirror the actual film, the embedded message was divided into frames. As the film roll took shape, the seconds became minutes and the minutes became hours and before I knew it, it was 3 in the morning.

That state mirrors Dr.Seuss’ lament - ‘How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?’

So call it eccentricity or creativity but when the brain goes into active mode and the more ideas are being churned, the more satisfaction it derives. Period.

Seemingly  creative writers like Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway, composers Irving Berlin and Sergey Rachmninoff, painters Paul Gauguin and Jackson Pollock are all a bit eccentric. When Lord Byron, a Romantic poet was prevented from having a dog as a pet in a dormitory in Cambridge, he got round the rules by having a bear instead, complete with leash. Then we have Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician with all his absurdities – my favourite being ‘smooth out all bodily indents on pillows and/or beds’

We have our own level of oddities that we are comfortable with which others might perceive that we have gone off our rocker. I think this level is proportional  with age – the older we get, the braver and the more unfazed we are about  being labelled as ‘odd’. And so we become the eccentric person that lives down the road. (usually with a cat)

Interestingly enough a google search on the word eccentric renders the Medieval Latin word eccentricus, derived from Greek ekkentros, meaning "out of the centre". So, my contention is what is so wrong about being out of the centre?  Edith Sitwell, a poet wrote that eccentrics are “entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd"

In fact, the people who stand out in my memory are those who are a tad different from the rest – that quirky lecturer who teaches from the heart, that student who produces the zaniest project or that whimsical child who lives in his happy bubble.

Creative difference is good.

It is a breath of fresh air, a departure from the same old, same old. Now this is different from mental illness.  Psychologist Dr David Weeks says that there are distinct characteristics of an eccentric, the top five being: having a nonconforming attitude, creative, intensely curious, idealistic and being happily obsessed with a hobby or hobbies.

Take painting on a canvas for example. Painting is a unique activity that is not associated with other routine activities. When we paint, we become immerse in the activity itself and when we paint on a regular basis, this becomes a repetitive action which is very enjoyable indeed.

So I decided to get a side of the wall painted with black magnetic chalk paint which allows me to stick magnets as well as doodle on it with bright fluorescent liquid chalk. There is nothing wrong with black except that we do not usually equate walls with the colour black.   Again, doing that took me way past midnight because I just had to finish it.

Apparently creative difference is triggered by uniqueness and emotional intensity. The black magnetic wall has evolved into quite a conversation piece indeed.

And the last time I heard, someone else is going to paint her wall black as well.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/40111