Creativity & The Unconscious In The Time Of COVID-19
The following blog post is a conversation between myself and my partner, Dr. Bruce Sawhill, Stanford educated theoretical physicist and mathematician.
On this fifteenth day of March, 2020 we observe the Ides of March. In 44 B.C. the assassination of Julius Caesar precipitated a turning point in Roman history. Two thousand years later, we may be at another turning point in history.
The Death of Julius Caesar 1806 -Vincenzo Camuccini
The world is now well-acquainted with the spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus. It reared its ugly spiked-protein head surreptitiously, shapeshifting from animal to human form, like something out of Greek mythology.
At first wreaking havoc as it flew with its leathery, rustling wings into Wuhan. like a marauding bat- dragon laying low anyone in its path with its poisonous breath.
Later, it would shape shift again, this time exploding with blistering speed onto the world stage like a war horse in a dead run.
We’re seeing exponential growth of coronavirus cases.
Unless extraordinary measures are taken to stop it, this virus will end up infecting most of the population of the Earth at some point.
This COVID-19 pandemic could end up being as widespread as previous ones such as the Spanish Flu (1918-1920), the Black Death (1331–1353) and the Plague of Justinian (541-542).
Those earlier afflictions infected vast numbers of people, even in civilizations without planes, trains and automobiles to connect people across vast distances.
Life finds a way
Jeff Goldblum ruefully opined in Jurassic Park
Fortunately, COVID-19 so far may not be as pervasively deadly as some of the previous pandemics, but that is no reason to be complacent. Things can change.
The coronavirus points out the dark side of creativity and the implacableness of Nature.
For new things to arise, old things must decline.
Creativity in Nature is not all platypuses and rainbows, it is also plague and ruin and unstoppable change, extinctions and revolutions.
Life is both beautiful and terrifying, and made all the more so by its finite duration.
And evolution never stops. There is no permanent winner.
It’s like the game of rock-paper-scissors (rochambeau), in which no single action can prevail for long. It just keeps churning.
Creativity implies impermanence, and one must come to terms with this, in one’s own life and in the world at large.
If it were permanent and unchanging, it would not be Life.
This “churn” is further illustrated by a concept from the branch of mathematics of game theory called The El Farol Problem or more commonly and dryly, The Minority Game.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, there is a centuries-old Spanish stables that was converted to a restaurant and bar, now very popular, especially among scientists from the Santa Fe Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Under the low arched doorways and sagging ceilings held up by bowed pine trunks that were harvested before the French Revolution, the celebrations, intrigues and affairs of a small town take place at candlelit tables.
El Farol is a very small venue. People like to go there, but the crowds can be overwhelming, margarita swigging hordes six deep at the bar, leather lunged bellowers creating a deafening cacophony and escalating contest of conversation that nobody can win.
But some nights are quiet.
If you chance on one of those nights when you’re looking for a peaceful solo meal with a classical guitarist playing softly and the snow sifting down gently outside, there is no more charming place in town to be.
But what happens then?
You tell your friends.
Being good friends, they listen to you. They join you. Soon, their friends do also.
It’s like a viral epidemic of conviviality.
And guess what? El Farol is crowded again.
Perhaps some other night? And the churn goes on.
The Virality Of Ideas
But viruses and popular restaurants are not the only viral things out there.
Ideas can have virality as well.
People talk of a social media meme, event or personality “going viral.”
It has become a familiar concept in the Internet age, so when a particular social phenomenon shows up everywhere simultaneously, we are not at all surprised.
“It’s the Internet, dummy” is considered a sufficient explanation to fob off on anyone who has the temerity to dig deeper.
This was not always so.
Serendipitous Simultaneity
Harkening back to the dim ages before the Internet, there have been cases of serendipitous simultaneity across many fields of human endeavor that cannot be explained by a simple causal mechanism such as telling your friends in person or online.
It is almost as if peoples’ minds tap into some sort of Zeitgeist (literally ‘spirit of the time’) that is non verbal and non-isolatable, a kind of collective unconscious driving the creative evolution of civilization.
Bruce has been thinking about a mysterious concurrence in human artistic history for the last thirty years. Creating this blog post and being in conversation about the intersection of art and science has been an impetus for him to finally set pen to paper and organize his ideas.
Here is Bruce’s observation, a collection of four events that happened across four disparate areas of creative endeavor in a few short years around 1905-1909. I believe it shows that there are powerful non-articulable forces at work in the subconscious that have profound and widespread effects.
Four Events Across Genres Implying Relativity Of Time & Perspective
In painting, Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907, a painting that did not have a single point of view to create a unified perspective around. Instead, it superimposed multiple points of view and was considered the first Cubist painting.
Les Demoiselles d Avignon- Pablo Picasso
One could argue that the time dimension has been added to the static practice of painting, and this was effected by the use of multiple points of view. Time is implied because changing points of view implies the painter or the subject moving, which would take time.
Other multi-perspective paintings followed from many painters, culminating in perhaps the most famous, Nude Descending a Staircase (Nu descendant un escalier n° 2) by Marcel Duchamp in 1912.
Nude Descending a Staircase-Marcel Duchamp
In music, the first atonal or twelve-tone pieces of music were being composed, arising in the works of Bartòk and Schoenberg in 1908. Although it was not yet called “twelve-tone” music, the fundamental principles of the genre were being explored at this time.
Combinatorial tone rows from Moses und Aron by Arnold Schoenberg pairing complementary hexachords
The concept of key or tonal center that had driven music for three centuries was eroded and ultimately discarded for music that had no tonal center.
Everything was relative to what was around it, and there was no preferred tonal center, just as in painting there was no preferred visual perspective.
In literature, Marcel Proust began In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) in 1909. In over three thousand pages and seven books spanning 13 years until his death in 1922, Proust explores multiple perspectives and the mutability of time and recollection depending on the point of view of the characters. Proust simultaneously addressed the importance and the subjectivity of time.
In Search Of Lost Time-Marcel Proust
What shows up again and again across different artistic pursuits is a new relationship with time, either explicitly (music and literature) or implicitly (art).
Time and perspective are inextricably linked and furthermore colored by subjectivity.
In science, something astonishing was bubbling up in the mind of a young man.
Albert Einstein
In Switzerland in 1905, a 26-year old patent clerk named Albert Einstein quietly publishes a revolutionary paper about a new theory called ‘Special Relativity’.
The theory states that the Universe does not have a preferred point of view (“reference frame”) and timekeeping is distorted by one’s point of view (clocks moving relative to an observer appear to run slower).
Again, time and point of view and subjectivity are inextricably intertwined.
As J.B.S. Haldane, the evolutionary biologist said,
Not only is the world stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
J.B.S. Haldane
Einstein’s theory was just a portent of strangenesses to come.
How and why did all of these perceptual and philosophical changes occur in such a short time?
It is hard to imagine that Schoenberg, Proust, and Picasso all read Einstein’s paper (and understood it) and made a conscious decision to apply the spirit of special relativity in their studios.
There is definitely correlation, but is there causality?
It is as if something bubbled up from the collective subconscious when the world was ready for it.
Studies of plagues have shown that often the virus or bacterium or organism was present all along, but for whatever reason it was unable to gain a foothold.
But sometimes, the collective circumstances of a civilization could change, generating a sudden transition, a phase transition, to a starkly different reality.
A phase transition is when something goes from one state to a completely different state seemingly all at once. For example, when you have a pot of water on a stove and as you heat it up, you get a bubble here and there and suddenly bubbles are everywhere as it boils. Where this happens is on the steep part of the curve of the graph below.
Phase Transition Graph
Issues such as widespread malnutrition, crowding, travel, poor crops and sick animals can change the variables just enough to tip the scales.
This is about the iceberg: how much of life is visible and how much is invisible.
New forms, new experiences arise at the boundary of the known and the unknown.
With gratitude from my studio to yours,
Nancy
P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my book:
The Artist’s Journey: Bold Strokes To Spark Creativity, named one of the Best Creativity Books Of All Time by BookAuthority.
The Artists Journey Bold Strokes To Spark Creativity-Nancy Hillis MD
Hello Nancy,
Thank you for your timely post. You make it clear that we are being thrown back upon ourselves, literally cut off from our familiar outside world and contacts, which can be a gift for creative productivity. It is so positive when a situation like this is put into perspective. I can hardly wait to go to my studio tomorrow, even if means just sitting there thinking about what you have written.
Hello Marilyn,
You’re so welcome. Thank you for being here and for writing. Yes- thrown back upon ourselves. This is a wonderful time for reflection, for noticing what is most meaningful and treasured.
Warmly,
Nancy
Hi Nancy – Thank you for your insights. I have been painting non-stop for the last week and I have a sense that there are others out there doing the same thing. It keeps me sane and balanced. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. It has become a wonderful compulsion and definitely a light in the darkness. Stay safe!
Hi Deb,
You’re welcome. Thank you for writing. Yes, art lights the way. Isn’t it wonderful that we have it?
Stay safe too!
Warmly,
Nancy
Hi Nancy,
Thanks to you and to Bruce for this post. I really enjoyed it, as I do all of your thoughtful reflections…very stimulating. It touched on so many things: the collective unconscious, at work simultaneously in new artistic and scientific developments; the impermanence of life and its implications for creativity, which is something so essential to ponder. Also, how to consider the changes in life in this time of disease and ‘social distancing’. It can be a period of fertile creative growth: I was made aware that during the Bubonic plague in 17th century, Isaac Newton was sent home from Cambridge and during that year began the bases of many of his well known scientific theories. William Shakespeare, also in exile from theater in London, took that time to write some of his famous plays: King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth.
Hi Donna,
Thank you for writing! That’s fascinating about Isaac Newton and William Shakespeare. May we realize that this is a fertile time for our own creativity and reflections on existential issues as well.
Warmly,
Nancy
One of the more engaging reads for me in a while. I loved that you two teamed on this. Thank you for inspiration and much to ponder while I stay close to home this week. I am concerned for the ones who are ill and the hardship this sequestering brings to many. I am also glad for this time to go deeper by slowing down (time and perspective). I can imagine a positive shift in consciousness. Sharing!
Hi Lauren!
I pray for a positive shift in consciousness during this time. We are reading more, being in conversations and reflecting during this quieter, slower time. The elastic quality of time makes it seem to stretch into more languorous days for me- much like the hours of childhood.
Love,
Nancy
A thought provoking chink of light, thank you, in these most interesting of times, Nancy and Bruce.
Ah…thank you dear Ruth. Yes, we live in exceedingly interesting times.
Warmly,
Nancy
Thank you for this interesting read. It is another perspective that opens ones mind to natural connections.
I have long thought about the magical or seeming inexplicable simultaneous emergence of related ideas, perspectives, and in today’s world, a virus. I notice often that I will have what I think to be a novel thought. Soon after, I see or experience someone else express it verbally or manifest it into a profitable endeavor. The internet demonstrates this phenomenon via artificial intelligence when you search the internet for or about something, minutes later related content comes to you.
What you describe is not artificial, though.
Your article is most thought-provoking and enlightening. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you so much Marilyn. I delighted in what you wrote here as well.
Warmly,
Nancy
Brilliant post which I am sharing. The intersection of art and science is so exciting in these bittersweet times. A more succinct overview than one of my favorite books, Homo Deus.
BTW, my husband and I ate at El Farol a few years ago with Murray Gellman & Marcia Southwick. Fortunately, it was one of those quiet May nights with a sprinkling of scientists.
Thank you for writing this!
Margaret,
Lincoln, NE
(the middle of everywhere)
Hi Margaret,
Thank you so much! Wow! It’s a small world. Bruce knew Murray, the èminence grise of the Santa Fe Institute and met Marcia once. It sounds like those quiet nights at the El Farol were lovely.
Thank you for writing.
Warmly,
Nancy
How trenchant,,and what interesting conversations you two must have, Sugarlump! Your ideas will trigger some of ours, I’m sure.
My husband, Hugh, and I are in self quarantine, and have been for a week or so,,,Actually,I have been relieved by it since I can spend more time in the studio which is benefitting from short breaks to organize it. The virus seems to be a test of what one needs and values,
Our kids and their kids have called to be sure we were warned and have given us solicitous offers of help in whatever we might need.
We love and treasure all of them. We are blessed, know it, and are deeply grateful for our family, our friends and our neighbors. We
feel we live in Mayberry! Yesterday we had the second snow of the winter, It frosted everything to appear calm and peaceful with only the dog walkers out.
The virus has reduced our world to the essentials. We have a pantry that has been stocked for the “inevitable quake” and our medicines
can be ordered by phone or picked up at the window of a nearby pharmacy. The virus has focused us and given us more free time to think and talk about what our life is about. Not a new topic but a non-ending one, especially since we are closer to it’s endings,
We are living the cliche, LIving in the present as it is a present to be living,
sending loving thanks for your interesting, supportive, well written views,
Anne
Ah…You melt my heart every time dear Anne. Your words are so meaningful to me. I love this: “The virus seems to be a test of what one needs and values” and “The virus has focused us and given us more free time to think and talk about what our life is about”. Yes! The eternal existential question.
Thank you for being in my life dear Anne. I love you too.
Nancy
Thought provoking..
Thank you Paula!
Very insightful & fascinating article. Thank you for pointing out similar changes (paradigm shifts) across different subjects. I think Nature & Mother Earth are a huge part of our collective consciousness. Or rather, we humans are one dimension of the Cosmos of collective consciousness. Recently I heard that as a result of the extensive quarantining going on in China, carbon emissions have dropped considerably. I felt an “aha” moment. It seems to me that Nature/Cosmos/Evolution is attempting to restore balance to a damaged planet.
Thank you Jan. Yes- it’s a big wakeup call. Mother Nature brings us back into balance again and again. She reminds us to wake up to how we treat one another as well as this Earth.
Nancy,
Loved reading this! You are an amazing writer.
Please take a look at forbiddenknowledgetv.net –
Did 5G cause corona virus.
insights from Rudolph Steiner that are most relevant, and astonishing!!
Love, Lesta
Oh wow that sounds fascinating!!! Rudolf Steiner I am so curious to read this
Lesta,
Thank you so much. I’ll take a look at it. Rudolph Steiner was a fascinating man.
Love,
Nancy
That is astonishing! Thank you so much!
Thank you Yvonne! Thanks for being here. Warmly, Nancy
This is lovely! Hope to run into you two at El Farol sometime. I’ve long been a huge fan of the notion of serrenditous simultaneity, and strive to be an attuned and creative participant within its flow. Stu’s notion of “adjacent possible” also resonates with the timely Zeitgeist, pregnant with potential.
Thank you Katherine! Bruce and I would love to see you and Stu at El Farol. Yes, the adjacent possible is like the phenomenon talked about in the post where an idea bubbles up from the collective subconscious in many forms at once. One potent example of this is the simultaneous invention of the calculus by Leibniz and Newton. I’ve written extensively about the relationship of the adjacent possible to creativity and art.
Quite an interesting dissertation. I appreciate the information allowing to open my mind in such a continuous wave ups and downs as nothing is in a straight line. Time to rethink our art and position on this planet.
Thank you Christine. Yes. Perhaps it’s a psychological and philosophical phase transition.
Warmly,
nancy
Very interesting and beautifully written.
Thank you Aino!
Loving your perspective and clarity of explanation. Change is not to be feared, it is the thing that makes life worth living. Change helps us morph to new levels and understanding that we had not before, viruses, wars, social verbal cacophony are the means to an end that bring us to new awareness and acceptance… and this too shall pass. It is a call to be awareness and appreciation and asks us to be present with our choices and actions.
Pick up a paint brush, or a pen, and release your anxiety with conscious attention to what is. And worry not, it will all be here again tomorrow and the day after, but you shall be the thing that changed…. embrace it.
A poem I love :
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
And they flew.
Christopher Logue
That’s so beautiful Thank you
Hey Jeanette! Thanks for being here. Love, Nancy
Thank you Corla. I love what you wrote about change leading us to new levels of understanding. Lovely.
Warmly,
Nancy
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Warmly,
Nancy
Nancy, I always enjoy the depth of your thinking. Your broad reach in literature and our culture of origin (as I see it) is a great reminder of what’s out there, ready for the taking.
I’m imagining our culture today, if we replaced our TVs with real literature, history, science and music…..
Thank you for sharing you!
Meike,
Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. Yes, the old stories have deep, eternal lessons. It’s time to return to art, science, literature, music, dance and deep thinking.
Very interesting article. I liked the connections Bruce highlighted. It reminded me of Dr. Richard Tarnes’ book, The Passion of the Western Mind. Tarnes highlights the role that art, science and religion have played in shaping our thinking. Thank you for posting this blog.
Thank you Pagyn. Bruce is a fount of knowledge, a polymath. Conversations with him are deep, meaningful and thought provoking. Thanks for the book reference. I’ll take a look at it.
Thank you for posting, Nancy. The concept of Simultaneous Spontaneity has always fascinated me. Your and Bruce’s discussions are exciting and illuminating.. I appreciate your insights into many issues and your accessible/excellent writing.
You’re so welcome Catherine! Yes, it’s a fascinating concept! Thank you for your lovely comments and for being here. Warmly, Nancy