THE DOCTOR IS IN

WHY WE DO IT

I recently began working with a filmmaker on a series of videotaped interviews with writers, musicians, and visual and performing artists. Before I came on board, the focus was the artists' day-to-day lives, their struggles, and their techniques. I was asked to help explore the emotional aspects of their creative process.

We are now immersed in the first project I have been part of. The subject is an actor and university teacher who incorporates the Japanese discipline of Butoh into her work. We have several hours of video so far, and we all feel we have barely scratched the surface. We have talked about her childhood love affair with ballet, her father's WWII experiences in the Imperial Japanese Army, and a host of other influences on her work. We have discussed the origins of Butoh in postwar disillusionment and its current relevance to a frightened and alienated society. Last week the camera ran out of whatever the digital equivalent of film is, and the subject and I couldn't stop talking; I kept asking questions and she answered them until the filmmaker told us firmly to cut it out because "this stuff is too good to waste."

All of this has been causing me to wonder, once again, what it is we're really talking about. Why is art so compelling that people build their lives around it and then spend their free time trying to describe and share it? Previous artists profiled in the series have ranged from the celebrated to the obscure. None of them have been paid for their participation, and chances are slim that they will ever be compensated. I'm not getting anything out of the project, either, except the chance to interact with brilliant and articulate people and ask them anything I like—and that feels like plenty.

But why? Art does not go far in addressing hunger or the needs for warmth or shelter. It doesn't get most of us anywhere in the real world. Some have likened the creative impulse to the desire to procreate—but that doesn't explain why those of us with children continue to need to make art.

Freud had many theories about art. One of the most attractive, to me, at least, is that is an extension of children's play. Our ancestors initially learned important life skills by acting them out safely in imaginative play in imitation of adults, before actually going out into the wild to hunt or defend their territory. We can see traces of this utilitarian play in modern children's games of house or school. Storytelling can also be seen as having evolutionary value in that it enables us to benefit from the real or imagined experiences of others.

These speculations make sense, and may even be true—but they're not "it." They don't explain art any more than the hunger drive explains dark chocolate mousse. The force that pulls us to create something from nothing; order from chaos; beauty and meaning from the banal may be inexplicable. Or maybe we're better off not knowing.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

[Susanne Dunlap]

Heady stuff for a Friday morning. My feeling is that the need to create is just as hard to explain as the meaning of life! But I enjoyed reading your articulate, thoughtful exploration. It's good to step back and think about it every once in a while.

[katharine weber]

Are we not the only living creatures who seem wired to take pleasure in making and experiencing art? It feels to me like an essentially instinctive human drive. It's a drive that is blunted in some people and heightened in others, but that, too, is what makes us human, isn't it, the infinite varieties of human expression and perception?

[Walter Rimler]

Maybe we aren't the only such creatures. According to Richard Starkey, MBE, octopuses travel along the sea bed picking up stones and shiny objects with which to build gardens.

[Susan O'Doherty]

Yes, octopuses build gardens in the shade, and other animals may also create beauty out of emptiness, but the question remains: Why? What evolutionary purpose could this possibly serve?

[Walter Rimler]

This is just a guess, but maybe the taste for beauty began for mating and reproduction reasons and became something less specific and, in humans, separate--the need for art. Art helps us make some sense of the world. It would be interesting to see what evolutionary biologists have to say about this.

[katharine weber]

We admire the octupus garden (as did the Beatles) for its beauty, but how do we know there isn't a biological imperative at work for the octopus having to do with attracting a mate or creating a nurturing environment for babies? How do we know the creation of something we judge as beautiful is motivated by a matching appreciation for beauty? Even if we don't understand why the octopus makes her choices, and even though it might be condescending to the octopus to dismiss the possibility that she can appreciate beauty by some of our same standards, isn't it presumptuous to impose on an octopus a human standard for beauty?

[Susan O'Doherty]

Wait, are octopus' gardens real?

[Walter Rimler]

These are interesting questions to ponder. I don't know if animals appreciate beauty as we do. But they have a lot of the same emotions we do, including fear, happiness and loyalty. We and they are made up of the same atoms and elements. Our consciousness appears to be inherent in those atoms. So, who knows, maybe we should include plants (rocks too?) along with animals when discussing consciousness. As for whether octopuses really have gardens: any marine biologists out there?

[Jack O'Doherty]

Yes, but they should be called "Octopi Garden . . . "

"I wrote Octopus's Garden in Sardinia. Peter Sellers had lent us his yacht and we went out for the day... I stayed out on deck with [the captain] and we talked about octopuses. He told me that they hang out in their caves and they go around the seabed finding shiny stones and tin cans and bottles to put in front of their cave like a garden. I thought this was fabulous, because at the time I just wanted to be under the sea too. A couple of tokes later with the guitar - and we had Octopus's Garden!"

Ringo Starr
Anthology

Octopi was supposed to be a joke - - -octopuses is correct.