Door into my zone of privacy, my studio
I know, it is easy to feel a bit of smuggish pleasure when an above-the-fold article in the Sunday New York Times articulates just what you have been saying for years.* Certainly I am not the only artist out there voicing advocacy for the way of solitude. There are many of us in that phalanx (metaphorical only!) who spend most of our days working alone and know that is the only way we can do what we do. But Susan Cain, author of an upcoming book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, has brought the topic to a larger audience.
From her article, The Rise of the New Groupthink:
Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.
But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.
In her article, Cain highlights the necessary introverted approach of Apple’s cofounder Steve Wozniak. And given the current spike in interest in Steve Jobs and Apple, this telling of the story is important:
The story of Apple’s origin speaks to the power of collaboration. Mr. Wozniak wouldn’t have been catalyzed by the Altair but for the kindred spirits of Homebrew. And he’d never have started Apple without Mr. Jobs.
But it’s also a story of solo spirit. If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.
Intentionally so. In his memoir, Mr. Wozniak offers this guidance to aspiring inventors:
“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me … they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone …. I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.”
I am looking forward to reading the book. And for a few more converts—or at least more respect—for the hermet’s life.
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*Here are a few previous posts on Slow Muse that touch on the value of solitude:
oh yes! the older I get the more silence I need, the more I want to be alone. My mind roams free when I have days on end without engagements, without speaking to anyone. (of course there’s the online chat, but that’s not so disruptive)
For the writer, which I am, it is much the same. I learned long ago the value of a closed door, even if it’s only virtual.
Altoon, you raise an issue that wasn’t part of the article or my post and that has to do with how the need for alone time changes as some of us get older. Like you, it has increased for me, that fierce defense of my alone time.
Maureen, I think Cain is saying that creative people in general–be they artists, musicians, poets or software developers–are all in need of that
“hive of one” as my friend Colleen Burke described it.
Amen!
Stephanie
“And I should have liked to be able to sit down and spend the whole day there reading and listening to the bells, for it was so blissful and so quiet that, when an hour struck, you would have said not that it broke in upon the calm of the day, but that it relieved the day of its superfluity, and that the steeple, with the indolent, painstaking exactitude of a person who has nothing else to do, had simply – in order to squeeze out and let fall the few golden drops which had slowly and naturally accumulated in the hot sunlight – pressed, at a given moment, the distended surface of the silence.” ~ Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way p.181-182
Writer Pico Iyer moved to rural Japan to enjoy The Joy of Quiet
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=1&src=recg
Walt, thank you for Proust, and Mad Silence, for your wonderful Iyer link. And of course my Buddhist pal Stephanie knows a lot about the beauty of solitude.
Well, happy new year, Deborah-and thanks for this timely refreshment! Enjoyed your synopsis and reflections-look forward to reading the rest. One of the finer articulations I’ve enjoyed over the years about solitude and studio time is attributed to John Cage:
“When you start working,
Everybody is in your studio-
The past
Your friends
Enemies
The art world,
And above all, your own ideas-all are there.
But as you continue painting,
They start leaving,
One by one,
And you are left completely alone.
Then if you’re lucky, even you leave.”
Bright thoughts!
Great post, Deborah. Silence and solitude are the nourishment my psyche requires in order to be able to create, think, explore ideas, and thrive.
I think that solitude is essential for us as makers, creators, but that there is am important role for collaboration and connection, too. I notice that if I remain holed up alone for too long, my work and my outlook can become stagnant, self-important and untested. Of, course, that’s one benefit of the internet, in that this strand of connection with a larger world is just at our fingertips.
A good working partner, a trusted cohort, even a support group can provide the lifeline to bigger, bolder, deeper, more adventurous work.