tl;dr: Creatives aren’t appreciated and true creativity takes place in the shadows.
The day before Thanksgiving I was feeling somewhat philosophical so I picked up a copy of Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One.
Truth be told, I think I am reading it more so I can tell people that I am reading it because, well, really understanding it is quite difficult, for me at least.
However, last night I was reading a section that seemed to build on yesterday’s post of How Creatives Are Wired Differently.
In the section, “Of Flies and the Marketplace,” Nietzsche writes:
“The people have little idea of greatness, that is to say: creativeness. But they have a taste for all presenters and actors of great things.”
Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra
I took this to mean that people have a taste for “showmanship” and theater, but the real work of creativity takes place in the studio and it’s messy, unpolished, and sometimes offensive. But most people, per Nietzsche, don’t appreciate that nor do they want to get exposed to it.
He continues.
“All great things occur away from glory and the marketplace: the inventors of new values have always lived away from glory and the market-place.”
Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra
Now, when he talks about “values,” I believe he is talking about morality in line with his “God is Dead” philosophy.
Without denying God’s existence, I think “values” can be read in the economic sense, as in “inventors of new value.”
If you want to be creative, you can’t also expect to do it in the spotlight, nor can you do it with a mind for glory or riches. That’s the result, not the motiavation.
There’s a quote in Edmund Morris’ biography of Edison that reads:
“I didn’t work at inventions unless I saw a market demand for them. I wasn’t interested in making money so much as in being the first to invent something society needed. But if you do that, the money comes in.”
-Thomas Edison
Edison, page 57
One could argue that Edison was inventing “in the marketplace” but one could also argue that his work was away from the marketplace because, by definition, there was no market for what he was inventing…it hadn’t been invented yet.
Too often, when we think about our futures, we think about being rich or heralded for our efforts and vision.
I think what Nietzsche and Edison are saying is that if you are doing that, you’re not being creative because you’ll fall under the wrong spell.
True creativity happens when you don’t care about those things.
