NAN SANDERS POKERWINSKI
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HeartWood
A blog about cultivating
creativity, connection and contentment
wherever you are

To Give Birth to a Dancing Star

6/8/2016

22 Comments

 
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​Do you flourish in the swirl of chaos, or does disorder derail you? I put the question to friends recently, and their answers surprised—and reassured—me.

As someone who's been teased about excessive organization (my label maker is the first thing I'd rescue from a fire), I've always felt my need for order was a character flaw—a sure hallmark of an unimaginative dullard. The truly creative thrived on mental and physical messiness. Or so I'd been led to believe. 
​So imagine my surprise when many of my most inventive and original friends confessed they prefer order over disarray—at least some of the time.
PictureSusan Stec: orderly writing life, riotous fiction

​One person I'd thought for sure would come down on the side of chaos is my writing pal Susan, a mile-a-minute talker who writes highly imaginative paranormal romance, urban fantasy humor and horror books populated with an uninhibited bunch of characters in riotous situations. I kinda figured her life must be like her books. But no, when Susan summons the muse, she wants order (though she does admit to revving herself up with old rock music). 

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Cover from one of Susan's books
PictureVan Odell in his woodworking shop. Not, at the moment, stirring sawdust.
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​Van, a school-days chum who builds fine furniture in his spare time, concurs. Without the utmost tidiness, he says, "I just stir the sawdust and rethink the design for hours." 

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One of Van's creations
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Another Odell original.
PictureRebecca. (No further description necessary, right?)
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Then there's the practical side of the question. "I can't find things, I get cranky," says Rebecca, who has a degree in library science and a reputation for organization (bet she loves her label maker, too), but also a mad creative streak (somewhere I still have the carrot-shaped hand puppet she made when we were roomies in Detroit). 

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Not the carrot, but another of Rebecca's puppet creations
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​Okay, I feel better knowing I'm not the only one who finds comfort in order. But what about the notion that chaos feeds creativity? It's not a myth—there's research to back it up.
​A study published in Psychological Science a few years ago found that although working in a tidy environment encouraged people to do responsible things like eating healthfully and giving to charity, working in a messy space stimulated their creative juices.
​The experiment by psychological scientist Karen Vohs and colleagues worked like this: participants were divided into two groups, with one group assigned to an orderly room and the other group assigned to a room with books and papers strewn about.
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​​The researchers asked both groups to work for a while in their assigned rooms, filling out questionnaires unrelated to the study. Afterward, all subjects were given a chance to donate money for books and toys for children. And as they were leaving, all were offered a snack of either a candy bar or an apple.
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​The results were clear: 82 percent of those who'd worked in the tidy room donated money, compared to only 47 percent from the messy room. And 67 percent of the neat room folks chose an apple over chocolate, while only 20 percent of the messy-room workers made that choice.
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​But look what happened when the researchers conducted an identical experiment with a different challenge at the end: thinking up novel uses for a ping pong ball. The messy-room and neat-room participants came up with the same number of ideas, but an independent panel of judges rated the messy-room workers' ideas as significantly more creative.

​Indeed, being willing to make a mess is key to breaking new ground, notes innovation consultant Linda Naiman in her Creativity at Work blog. "Chaos is part of the creative process, and you miss out if you avoid it."
PictureMalcolm Gladwell
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Naiman's blog post, which includes a video clip of journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell expounding on embracing creative chaos, ends with this quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

Note the word within. I read in a Scientific American blog post that brain researchers recognize two crucial brain networks for creative thought: the Executive Attention Network, which gets busy when cognitive control is needed, and the Imagination Network (also known by the too-boring-for-something-so-cool name Default Mode Network), which retrieves personal past experiences and other long-term memories and also is involved in thinking about the future and imagining alternative scenarios to the present. Daydreaming type stuff, in other words. 
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Studies show that the Imagination Network is highly active during creative thinking. But there's also a need for controlled attention—the business of the Executive Attention Network—to make sense of the jumble of ideas the creative mind comes up with. 
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​"I like to think of creative cognition as controlled chaos because it incorporates both elements of the creative process," writes  Scott Barry Kaufman, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania's Imagination Institute, in the Scientific American blog piece. "Cognition that is merely controlled is rigid and colorless. Cognition that is pure chaos is bizarre. But we owe some of the greatest inventions of all time to cognition that is both controlled and chaotic."
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​My friends and I don't claim to be coming up with the greatest inventions of all time, but that's pretty much the conclusion we've arrived at. There's a need for balance between chaos and order. Here's Rebecca, the puppet-making library science grad: 
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​"If we want to get Hegelian, the sequence is thesis, antithesis, synthesis, so we need a little chaos in the middle in order (ha!) to get to the innovation/synthesis part."
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​I got a D in Philosophy 101, so I barely understand the Hegel reference, but I do think I know what she's talking about. When I'm making a collage, I like to sift through all the magazine pictures I've assembled—and we're talking hundreds of images—and see what catches my eye. I've deliberately resisted filing the pictures by subject, color or any other system of categories, because the random juxtaposition of images—a dinosaur next to a feathered hat, Oprah's face atop a goldfish—sparks my imagination. After playing around in the mess on my work table for a while and coming up with interesting combinations, I can begin assembling the disparate pieces into an orderly (but not too orderly!) design. 
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One of my collages: Fruit Fantasy I
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Who knows what might emerge from this jumble?
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​The whole thing is a joy, and that same order-chaos-order process seems to work for many of my creative friends, judging from their responses to my question. Diane, for example, is a Feng Shui consultant whose latest projects—helping prepare Red Fox Market in Big Rapids for opening and creating a fairy house for Camp Newaygo's Enchanted Forest event—are all about "creating spaces to reflect what one wants to 'feel' in their life." She puts it this way:  
PictureDiane Sack


​​"Totally love the order that comes through chaos! Whether creating a huge mess, or just finding oneself in the middle of a chaotic life, the feeling of satisfaction and calm joy surfaces once all is clean, organized and less stressful. Love the process of it all."

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Diane, helping out at Red Fox Market
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Entry to Diane's fairy house

​​So here, to me, is the bottom line: You don't have to a slob to be creative, you only have to be willing to get messy sometimes. Just make sure you choose your snacks after you've cleaned up the mess.
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Agree? Disagree? Where do you fall on the order-to-chaos continuum, and how do you think your position on the scale affects your creativity?
22 Comments
Linda Curatolo link
6/8/2016 07:44:36 am

What a blessing it is to know you, Nan, and to benefit from your journalistic excellence which has translated into blogging superpowers.

My daughter and I work together and we both struggle with "how neat does it have to be for us to buckle down and work," and "should we just ignore this mess?"

Turns out we aren't actually "ignoring this mess" we're feeding our creative juices with it.

Time to share with my daughter and let her know we're okay being somewhere in the middle of neat and messy, 'cause Nan Sanders Pokerwinski says so.

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:36:11 am

Linda, you make my heart glad. I was having one of those is-this-blog-thing-really-worth-all-the-effort? days yesterday, and your comments made me feel like the effort was worthwhile.

Glad to know you're giving yourself permission to ignore the mess sometimes. I've been trying to do that, too, and it is remarkably freeing and helpful in making time (if not space) for creative work.

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Rebecca
6/8/2016 09:10:36 am

...um...no label maker, Nan. Just a Sharpie and my best penmanship. I hope this is not disappointing, because, let's face it, the probability of a label maker here is off the charts high.

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:30:49 am

As long as you're making some kind of label, I'm reassured.

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Cindi McDonald
6/8/2016 09:26:51 am

Well...I am beyond messy. Just ask my husband! Sadly, I have not one creative bone in this old body. However, I have enjoyed Nancy's creative works since our jr. high school days. That's a blessing!

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:32:50 am

You are more creative than you give yourself credit for, Cindi. Don't forget the potpourri/garbage disposal/vacuum cleaner incident. That showed real creative thinking!

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Colleen link
6/8/2016 09:30:30 am

Great post, Nan! Yes, totally agree. I'm more organized and neat on the whole, but sometimes getting "messy" is necessary, like when I cut up scenes and have them all over the floor, or have my notes scattered everywhere around the house. I have heard that "clutter" is stress-inducing, shouting at the brain to do something about it, so I do a regular "throw it out" routine every few months to keep things cleaned up. Love the light feeling I get once the extra "stuff" is gone.

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:41:11 am

Clutter is definitely stress-inducing for me, Colleen. But I can live with a large number of semi-organized piles of stuff. One of my Free Press coworkers (are you reading this, John?) used to amuse himself by messing up my piles of papers when I was away from my desk and then waiting to see how long it would take me to reorganize them. It was usually a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

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Susan Stec link
6/8/2016 09:44:27 am

I'll admit to a messy work area, especially when I have three or more WIPs going at once. I've never owned a label maker (I keep a years supply of sticky note pads on hand), but there is an order to my mess, and I know right where everything is (most of the time). hahaha

Author, Dean Koontz~~~When tempest tossed, embrace chaos.

Another great article. I look forward to my HeartWood fix :)

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:42:24 am

You amaze me with your ability to juggle so many things at once, Susan!

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Kathy
6/9/2016 04:25:42 am

Enjoyed reading this. I'm organized and have never considered myself creative but I think it lies in waiting . Also married to a very creative man so I enjoy watching him.

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Nan
6/9/2016 05:44:33 am

I think you're using your creativity in different ways, Kathy. And you're right, there's probably even more to be discovered (in all of us, for that matter!).

We need to get you and that creative man in a blog post one of these days.

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J.Q. Rose link
6/9/2016 11:33:01 am

Thank you for introducing us to so many creative people. Loved the photos. And the dissertation on organized chaos. Baking a cake today, I tried not to make a mess. But what fun is that? But then, there is the clean-up after which I do not like.

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Nan
6/10/2016 07:45:25 am

Sounds like a job for the cake-eaters!

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Sally Pobojewski
6/9/2016 01:25:16 pm

Very interesting, Nancy. I think I lean more toward chaos. I have a gift (or curse) of being able to ignore the mess. I just don't see it after awhile. I usually have multiple projects underway, but find that I must focus on just one at a time until it's finished. This means the house is filled with piles of stuff for other projects-in-process. I do not own a label maker. It never occurred to me to get one. Should I consider therapy for this?

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Nan
6/10/2016 07:48:58 am

It's unfathomable to me that anyone can live without a label maker. And yet, you are not the only one who does. I admit, I don't use mine as much as I used to, but there are times when it's so darned useful!

I'm like you with the multiple projects and need to focus on one at a time. (And that's where project boxes and labels come in so handy!)

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Ray
6/11/2016 06:42:37 am

Heck,Nan, everything in are house has A LABEL on it.

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Nan
6/11/2016 08:24:41 am

Ha! Busted!!!

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Emily Everett
6/11/2016 07:17:38 am

When I read that question -- Do you flourish in the swirl of chaos, or does disorder derail you? -- my first thought was yes to both! So I loved the topic and your take on it. And this is probably the time to confess to my wonderful organized and creative friend that I do own a label maker but have never taken it out of the box. I hope that somehow qualifies me for the candy bar group :)

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Nan
6/11/2016 08:29:06 am

How funny, Emily! I wonder what possessed you to buy the label maker in the first place. The seduction of Staples, perhaps? And whether or not that qualifies you, you're welcome to join the candy bar group.

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Katherine Myers
6/18/2016 03:15:59 pm

The chaos in my living room is mainly made by my two darling grandsons, and I wouldn't have it any other way....but some days my eyes need somewhere to rest where there's order. So, messes are floor level, order is higher on the bookshelves.
My sewing room floor is total chaos (my daughter is recovering two armchairs...), but my wool, yarn and fabric is orderly stored behind doors and in vintage suitcases.
There are small piles of papers on my desk, but thanks to my wonderful LABEL MAKER, I have a filing system to be proud of. Need that instruction manual? Here it is!! I even impress myself...bottom line, clutter stresses me and causes me to waste time. I am never inspired to creativity by clutter...says this retired librarian.

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Na
6/28/2016 08:30:13 am

Sounds like you have just the right balance of chaos and order, Katherine. And I'm so glad to know that you have a label maker!! I spent some quality time with mine over the past weekend, and it gave me such a sense of peace to do a little long-neglected organizing.

Reply



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    Nan Sanders Pokerwinski, a former journalist, writes memoir and personal essays, makes collages and likes to play outside. She lives in West Michigan with her husband, Ray.

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