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creativity
November 2009 
Human dualities ...
Posted on Nov 20th, 2006
by 
Naumadd
Naumadd
Recently, I was reading Margaret Atwood's essay "Duplicity: The Jekyll Hand, The Hyde Hand, and The Slippery Double" in her book "Negotiating With The Dead - A Writer on Writing" where she's discussing the fact that writers are and must live practically as two people in a single body - one personality passionately attached to the real world lustfully drinking in all it has to offer them, while the other personality maintains an almost monstrously detachment from the real world in order to write OF it and FROM it without being distracted BY it. Having been a writer myself for the bulk of 46 years, I can say from experience that Margaret couldn't have been more right in her estimation of writers and, indeed, of all "self-expressives". In my view, trying to maintain a lust for living while at the same time attempting some genuine detachment from life to create something new from it IS most definitely a sort of madness. There's little wonder that so many writers, artists, musicians, or the like have so persistently and tragically suffered and eventually self-destructed in one way or another.
But, in reading Margaret's essay, it also struck me this duality of attachment-detachment among passionately creative individuals explains much in general human psychology - artist or not - and too explains much in the patterns seen in ancient and current human mythologies and in all of human history thus far. Today, we see world cultures and especially cultures in the United States at war with themselves over the ideas of the "attached", i.e., the earth-bound, the earthy, the natural, the pagan, the physical, the scientific, the rational, the reasonable, the hedonistic, the human, versus the "detached", i.e., the "spiritual" or "supernatural", the Christian or Jew or Muslim, the non-physical, the ethereal, the non-scientific, the irrational, the unreasonable, etc. One has to agree that this battle between attachment and detachment has raged for millenia and is likely to rage for millenia more but for one possible compromise. It is not a compromise only for the sake of some societal balance or peace but, must needs primarily be for the sake of peace within the individual, for balance in each and every one of us. That compromise begins with an understanding that within each of us is the absolute need for attachment AND detachment with respect to the natural world, other lives and ourselves. We cannot live without attachment, however, there is no quality life without reflection on what one has experienced and, through personal thought and emotion, creation of the new, of that which has never been seen previously.
As I said before and to echo Margaret, writers have an especially hard time with the issue of attachment-detachment and more than a few writers have lived and died in utter madness. It may sound disturbing to many, but I too have experienced much of what could only be called madness for the sake of my writing and as a creative human being. It was, is, and continues to be absolutely unavoidable and, paradoxically, simultaneously and profoundly functional AND dysfunctional. I'm certain this is true of myself, of all writers and likely of all creative spirits that we suffer from what we seem to believe are necessary extremes in attachment and of detachment. As creatives, we struggle for either absolute attachment as the source of our art or absolute detachment in order to do the art itself but, alas, cannot have both at once despite our fervent struggles to do so. What leads to the madness is the truth that one MUST be a whole person to remain healthy, however, one cannot create the art without living as only half a human being at any one time. The attached personality of the creative longs for his or her art, longs for detachment. The detached personality longs for attachment when the art is running dry. After all, one isn't thoroughly living if one is instead thoroughly focused on creating. We cannot have both and yet we cannot bear to be only one half of who and what we are. Only half a human being makes a madman despite outward appearances to the contrary.
All of this certainly helps to explain the psychology of the creative, however, I believe it fills in at least some of the blanks in the psychology of ALL human beings, creative or not, and, because all of us have a hand in writing species and planetary history, perhaps this attachment vs. detachment duality goes a great distance in explaining where and why we've been, where and why we are, and where and why we might be headed. Perhaps the solutions available or to be found to help passionately creative individuals cope with their natural and often dysfunctional dualities give us insight into real and effective solutions for the very natural but definitely dysfunctional dualities of the entire species.
One can only hope.
But, in reading Margaret's essay, it also struck me this duality of attachment-detachment among passionately creative individuals explains much in general human psychology - artist or not - and too explains much in the patterns seen in ancient and current human mythologies and in all of human history thus far. Today, we see world cultures and especially cultures in the United States at war with themselves over the ideas of the "attached", i.e., the earth-bound, the earthy, the natural, the pagan, the physical, the scientific, the rational, the reasonable, the hedonistic, the human, versus the "detached", i.e., the "spiritual" or "supernatural", the Christian or Jew or Muslim, the non-physical, the ethereal, the non-scientific, the irrational, the unreasonable, etc. One has to agree that this battle between attachment and detachment has raged for millenia and is likely to rage for millenia more but for one possible compromise. It is not a compromise only for the sake of some societal balance or peace but, must needs primarily be for the sake of peace within the individual, for balance in each and every one of us. That compromise begins with an understanding that within each of us is the absolute need for attachment AND detachment with respect to the natural world, other lives and ourselves. We cannot live without attachment, however, there is no quality life without reflection on what one has experienced and, through personal thought and emotion, creation of the new, of that which has never been seen previously.
As I said before and to echo Margaret, writers have an especially hard time with the issue of attachment-detachment and more than a few writers have lived and died in utter madness. It may sound disturbing to many, but I too have experienced much of what could only be called madness for the sake of my writing and as a creative human being. It was, is, and continues to be absolutely unavoidable and, paradoxically, simultaneously and profoundly functional AND dysfunctional. I'm certain this is true of myself, of all writers and likely of all creative spirits that we suffer from what we seem to believe are necessary extremes in attachment and of detachment. As creatives, we struggle for either absolute attachment as the source of our art or absolute detachment in order to do the art itself but, alas, cannot have both at once despite our fervent struggles to do so. What leads to the madness is the truth that one MUST be a whole person to remain healthy, however, one cannot create the art without living as only half a human being at any one time. The attached personality of the creative longs for his or her art, longs for detachment. The detached personality longs for attachment when the art is running dry. After all, one isn't thoroughly living if one is instead thoroughly focused on creating. We cannot have both and yet we cannot bear to be only one half of who and what we are. Only half a human being makes a madman despite outward appearances to the contrary.
All of this certainly helps to explain the psychology of the creative, however, I believe it fills in at least some of the blanks in the psychology of ALL human beings, creative or not, and, because all of us have a hand in writing species and planetary history, perhaps this attachment vs. detachment duality goes a great distance in explaining where and why we've been, where and why we are, and where and why we might be headed. Perhaps the solutions available or to be found to help passionately creative individuals cope with their natural and often dysfunctional dualities give us insight into real and effective solutions for the very natural but definitely dysfunctional dualities of the entire species.
One can only hope.
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