Bursting creative bubbles
Every act of creation is first an act of destruction. — Pablo Picasso
Groupthink—the enemy of all artistic expression. Whether the creative bubble be geographical, organizational, or ideological, any musician seeking to grow as an artist encounters this insidious mind-trap at least once in their careers. We snuggle into what we know our particular group likes and we heed the other members’ warnings when our artistic curiosity bumps us up against the limits of what the group deems acceptable. We remain comfortable until the inevitable moment when our creativity forces us to make a choice between staying within the false security of the bubble, or breaking out of it, taking the consequences as the cost of freeing ourselves and our art.
And there are consequences. Even among creatives, groupthink despises rule breakers. Anyone who has left one group or another has stories to share of being criticized or outright shunned for daring to break down walls others view as sacred. In more extreme situations, “rebel” artists see their careers threatened. Faced with these consequences, staying within the bubble may seem like the easy path, but artists who make this choice risk much more dangerous consequences.
Groupthink embraces the oxymoron called “safe risks.” It asks members to stop growing, forgetting that stagnation is the anthesis of the creative act. That’s why when the artist knows it’s time to break out of a creative bubble, they know it’s worth the price of doing so. No new thought, no great artistic moment has ever come from playing it safe. The role of the artist is to dare to offend, to challenge, and to walk lonely roads until they grow into their creative vision and find new tribes. The risk of failure is great, but the risk of not trying is greater.
We’ve all seen the price of settling for the false safety of groupthink. The cost is on the faces, in the voices, and in the lives of those individuals who ignore the invitation to grow, choosing instead to uphold a status quo that offers them the illusion of belonging. They’re the people who were once dynamic and creative but now churn out the same thing over and over again. In the most extreme cases, they’re the frustrated, angry individuals who no longer create at all. These former creatives become the Gorgons who control the gates of groupthink, always warning others that daring to step outside the agreed-upon rhetoric is to invite banishment.
If we examine our own creative lives, we can see where we’ve grown stale and complacent. It’s likely that these areas are also where we’ve been lulled into groupthink and have started to ignore the inner promptings of our creative souls. And if we listen deeply enough, we hear two things: that which is clamoring to be born, and the voices of groupthink telling us all the reasons why we dare not unleash this vision into the world.
How do we know which creative bubble has us trapped? By asking ourselves who will disapprove if we follow our hearts and birth the artistic vision we’ve been given. The limitations may be geographical (“no one in my community does this thing”). Sometimes they’re organizational (“what will the university or teaching organization think if I do this?”). And sometimes it’s ideological (“will I be canceled or shunned if I do this thing?”). We know immediately who we risk offending when we dare to ask this question.
Finding our way out of the bubble is difficult. Most of us try to either be “in it but not of it,” or we try with evangelistic zeal to convince the Gorgons of groupthink to share our creative vision. Both of these paths are rarely successful as groupthink has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The question then becomes, "can I create in intellectual captivity?” A study of Soviet Russia shows that there were individuals whose artistry was such that they did extraordinary work under unimaginable constraints. But this was rare. Most artists need clear creative air and open artistic horizons to speak their truths, and gaining that freedom requires sacrifice.
I know musician friends who moved abroad, or to a new geographical region to seek bigger horizons. Even in our hyper-connected world, geography still matters because we all see our work through the lens of what our community values. In large countries such as the United States, different regions value different artistic things. Some regions are open to a wider, more global vision, other regions become proverbial “snow globes” of groupthink. In these insular markets, artists must comply or risk being shunned. In extreme circumstances, when the gap between the local groupthink and the artist’s vision is too wide, the artist may need to direct their energies to create connections with others outside their region, or relocate.
I am one of many “lapsed academics” who for creative purposes chose to step away from a university position. My own reasons are ones I wrote about in “5 reasons why pianists should avoid an academic career.” Teaching groups, schools, universities—every one of these organizations has its own special groupthink. It’s ironic that institutions dedicated to training people to think and to create can become closed, insular societies running on shovelfuls of groupthink, but they do. An indicator of groupthink is how slavishly its members attempt to gain power within the system, while not seeing that anything else exists outside of its walls. They take the template of their organization’s groupthink and apply it to the rest of society and then wonder why the rest of society (who may not even be aware of the organization in question) doesn’t see them as valuable. This perceived rejection by the outside world feeds a persecution complex, which turns members inward, which encourages groupthink…Faced with these parameters, most artists have to leave the organization or risk being swallowed up by it. Very few succeed at being “in it but not of it.”
As challenging as it is to escape geographical and organizational creative bubbles, they’re easier to leave than ideological bubbles. Leaving an ideology can be deeply painful as it forms the basis of who we are and is frequently the common ground upon which we communicate with others. Artistic trends, rigid musical genres, political groups, cultural stances, religious beliefs—these ideologies are rife with groupthink. They are also some of the most dangerous creative bubbles to leave because an artist who challenges their particular group risks not only creative alienation, but condemnation. Ideological groups live in an “us-against-them” world, one where opposing ideas aren’t just wrong, they’re evil. Rather than choosing to “agree to disagree without being disagreeable,” accusations, cancellations, and predictions of hellfire masquerade as social discourse. Yet, even when faced with these consequences, creativity refuses to be held captive to orthodoxy in any form. This is why even those artists who share deeply-held beliefs with a group of people still dare to question, to grow, and to reach beyond the Manichaean world view of groupthink.
I applaud those musicians who have found ways to burst free of creative bubbles without needing to upend their lives. I’m not one of them. Yes, there was a price for each departure, but the growth and freedom I received through leaving more than compensated for the blowback I experienced. I write from personal experience when I say that the only successful way to escape creative bubbles is to stop listening to the blather of outside voices and listen deeply to ourselves. When we’re willing to sit long enough with silence, the places where we’ve been creatively trapped will present themselves to us. We’ll see the green shoots of what’s longing to be birthed through us. We’ll feel the energy and begin to sense a way out of the bubble. And, because we know the price of staying safe, we’ll dare to follow the Muse through those walls into a world wider and more colorful than we ever imagined.
Photo by Mathieu Turle, courtesy of UpSplash