Introduction

Recently, while running, I listened to the following podcast:Ça sert à quoi d’être créatifs ?

Like most things done by Bing Audio, it's a rather interesting podcast where, in summary, the speakers explain that being creative is essential for being happy. But be careful, they are not talking about creativity in the artistic sense of the term (or rather not only that). They are not saying that everyone should write a book, paint, or play a musical instrument. What they call creativity is something that, theoretically, can concern any job. A baker can be creative in the choice of cakes she puts on sale, a salesperson can (and even should) be creative in the way he personalizes the advice he gives to his clients. Creativity, in this sense, is taking one's work to heart and personalizing it. It's putting oneself into it and expressing oneself through what one does (no matter what it is or whether others notice it).

And I can only agree with that. The very reason for the existence of this blog is that I need, to be happy, a space where I can create things, and unfortunately, my day job doesn't allow me to be creative (or very little). And I really find it hard to imagine being comfortable with oneself if one doesn't have an activity that is close to the heart and where one can express oneself at least a little.

However, where I struggle the most is when they explain that everyone can and should be creative. And when they add that those who say they cannot be creative are just making excuses and that their arguments are merely psychological barriers, I find them downright contemptuous. So, of course, it's not entirely false. There is a part of psychological blocking and even social conditioning that makes women and the poor not dare to venture into certain creative activities outside of their work or not have enough confidence in themselves to impose their way of doing things at work (and thus claim a right to be creative in their work), whereas often this would improve the final result and many employers are looking for this kind of initiative. And besides, I would add that many employers play on this need for employees to get involved in their work and be proud of what they do to make them accept the unacceptable, but that's slightly off-topic.

Nevertheless, I find that it is problematic in more than one way.

Not everyone can be creative.

First of all, I think that's totally false. Psychological blockages are not only a minor reason why some people don't have as many opportunities to be creative as they would like, but also, these blockages are the result of more fundamental reasons.

Indeed, as mentioned by the author of a best-seller they cited, when you are in a precarious situation, you cannot be creative. Having experienced a very small sample of this at the beginning of my working life, I can testify that when you are constantly worried about how you will pay the rent or fear getting fired or suffering various humiliations or other social violence, it eats away at your brain. You constantly think, without being able to help it, about how to be as close as possible to what is expected of you and to find a trick to get by. When you are in this situation, in your leisure moments, you have only one desire: to clear your mind.

And outside of one's home (that is, at work and with people one encounters), being oneself represents a much too significant risk, as one is not psychologically in a state to absorb additional frustrations if our way of doing things displeases (and of course, at work, there is also the risk of reducing one's chances of acquiring the passport to crisis exit, which is the permanent contract, or even getting fired). And this is multiplied when the real you is very different from the norm. Being oneself is easy and liberating only when your identity is accepted and valued. If we take the extreme case of trans people, many commit suicide or decide to detransition following the various bullying and violence they suffer when they publicly embrace who they really are. And how to be creative without being oneself? Without publicly exposing who one is. You might say, it's enough to engage in an artistic activity during leisure time. But as I said, when one is in a precarious situation, during leisure time, often, one does not have the mindset, let alone the energy for that. And yet, I agree with the authors of this podcast that practicing an artistic activity would be extremely beneficial for them.

And since I have already made enough people cry in this blog post and I have not personally experienced this type of situation, I will just briefly mention that many jobs, such as warehouse worker at Amazon, which some are forced to accept to escape precariousness, deprive you of any chance to be creative in your work or to have an artistic activity in your free time.

The result of all this is that it seems completely wrong to me to say that everyone can be creative and that it's a matter of will and overcoming psychological blocks. For me, being creative requires material conditions that are currently not met for many people. And forTo obtain them, the only way seems to me to be to mobilize collectively in unions, parties, movements like the Yellow Vests, etc. Claiming otherwise, to me, is individualizing the problem and diverting people from the real solutions to their problem. Working on oneself is much easier and more pleasant than activism, but it will only be effective for the most privileged (of which I and the participants of this podcast are part). Claiming otherwise, to me, is pushing the most precarious to waste their time in a sterile path and freeing the most privileged from their guilty conscience and their duty to use their privilege to improve the fate of the greatest number with a discourse that is ultimately very meritocratic. After all, if the poor made a little effort, they could free themselves from their blockage and be happy, so it's their fault and not the social organization if they are unhappy.

And besides, speaking of the aforementioned psychological blockages, even though I do not deny their reality and the importance of fighting against them, as mentioned earlier, I think they are partly due to these material constraints. If people do not dare to create, think they are not capable, or that it is not for them, it is partly due to the well-known and scientifically documented phenomenon of rationalization. Indeed, the human brain is programmed to find coherence where there is none and to preserve our self-esteem. This results in quite a few astonishing phenomena, such as its ability to invent or modify memories. But in the case at hand, the phenomenon that interests us is that it has been proven that the brain spends its time inventing reasons to justify our actions and desires.

For example, we now know that the choice to have children or not probably doesn't have much to do with consciousness, and yet we have the impression that it does. Moreover, personally, I am convinced that it is a conscious choice on my part not to have children, and I am capable of arguing it at length. And yet, research seems to show that it is our unconscious that decides whether or not we want children and that it is only afterward that our brain tries to find reasons to justify this choice.

In other words, we have the illusion of using our reason to decide whether or not we want children, but in fact, the choice has been made by our unconscious based on criteria we are unaware of, and we use our reason to justify it afterward. And the brain does this because it needs our actions to be coherent and, in our culture, it would hurt our self-esteem to admit that we don't know why we made this decision. For those wondering, I know this thanks to an interview with a biologist in another Bing Audio podcast called: "Marie et les œufs en neige".

But let's stop this digression and connect it to the initial topic. I think that psychological blocks and false excuses are partly due to this phenomenon of rationalization. In our culture, acknowledging that we arePrevented from doing what we want by our living conditions or our superiors, it hurts our self-esteem.

In some contexts, it is even taking the risk of being accused of victimizing oneself (unfortunately, our society does not like weakness, even though it is the source of our humanity). As a result, these excuses and blockages are partly created by our brain to find an emotionally acceptable explanation for our lack of creative activity. They are therefore consequences and not causes of what prevents us from fulfilling our need for creativity. There are, of course, other causes of these blockages, starting with our socialization in childhood. Some will be encouraged in their childhood to be creative and assert themselves in public (men and sons of the bourgeois), while others will be encouraged to be reserved and obedient (women and sons of the proletariat).

But I will stop here on the causes and conclude this part by stating that these blockages persist even when the causes that led to their creation disappear, and therefore the incentive to get rid of these blockages is not useless. What bothers me is limiting oneself to this and pretending that there are no other causes preventing people from being creative in their work or leisure.

Not everyone can engage in artistic activity.

To conclude, even if it's not the central topic of this podcast, towards the end, a speaker says that, for him, everyone can draw and write and that you just need to take a pencil, a sheet of paper, and muster your courage, then get started. This poses a problem for me for two reasons. The first is that if both hands are used to hold your courage, then you only have one free to write (okay, I'm leaving). My second and real reason is that this goes against my own experience as an amateur writer. For me, sometimes (and even often) when it comes to artistic activities, the excuses and psychological blocks are simply not that. The person is just telling you the truth with arguments, and seeing their words dismissed by psychological arguments is just extremely contemptuous and annoying.

I am sorry for the proponents of the myth of artistic genius who believe that the gift of writing fell from the sky like misery on the poor world, but writing a story, even a short and bad one, requires learning. No one would ever think to say that one can play a musical instrument without having learned, and it's the same for writing.

Personally, during my adolescence, I tried to write a story, but due to not knowing how to do it, I had to give up before writing more than ten lines. If at the time I told myself that I wasn't capable, it wasn't because I had a psychological block or was making excuses, but because I simply couldn't. It was only long after that the randomness of life led me to meet people on the internet who taught me how to write (and I will never thank them enough). For me, if you feel that it comes naturally and that you have known how to write since childhood, it's either because you have exceptional abilities (unlikely), or because you grew up around people who already knew how to write and passed on that knowledge to you (much more likely, especially if you come from a culturally affluent background) without you realizing it (and perhaps without them realizing it either, as children are great at learning just by watching adults do things).

To practice an art, one must at least have the time to spare for learning an art (if your leisure time is limited, you can forget it) and have access to a means of learning. It could be said that thanks to the internet and now to AIs, this knowledge is increasingly accessible (and it's true). However, even among young people, many do not know how to use digital tools or do not have access to them due to financial constraints. And in any case, there are many types of art that cannot be learned remotely (or only with difficulty).

Moreover, even for bears like me, practicing an art must be at least somewhat social. If your favorite fanfiction writers are clamoring for reviews, it's not just to please recommendation algorithms or to flatter their ego (at least not only). It's also because getting feedback is the best way to improve and stay motivated. And I'm convinced that if I make progress in the future and continue to stay motivated, it will be largely thanks to your future feedback. No, this is not a disguised way of blackmailing for reviews, I'm just reminding you that every time I write an article and don't get feedback, I cry for a week and curse you for three generations, but other than that, you do what you want.

In any case, this is true for writing, and I think it is also true for all other arts. Take music, for example. Of course, one can learn to play an instrument on their own by watching tutorials on the internet and then just play in their room, but it is still much more motivating, enjoyable, and easier to learn with a teacher or to practice with a group or at least have someone who willingly listens to you play.

As a result, at the risk of politicizing everything, I think that once again, we should not individualize the problem at the risk of proposing solutions that miss the mark.

In conclusion, even if the priority must be to improve working conditions so that more people can feel good and be creative there, I think that it is not always possible or desirable, and that it is therefore important to have the opportunity to satisfy one's creative needs outside of work. For this, even when faced with people who are not in precarious situations and do not have exhausting jobs, it is not enough to just encourage them to get moving. It is also necessary to create the conditions for these people to be able to learn an art that attracts them. And when I talk about art, I am not only referring to the noble arts that are socially valued.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't consider it demeaning to writing to say that sports, DIY, fishing (yes, sorry, even with a lot of effort, I can't consider that a sport), gardening, or any other activity done for pleasure are full-fledged arts and have the same value as the so-called great arts. For me, this implies funding and developing the associative sector to the maximum, where members would be free to define their own activity without local dignitaries getting involved. Furthermore, if you have read my article on the war in Ukraine, you will know that for me, developing the associative sector is a far more effective way to strengthen our national defense than creating more atomic bombs.