Solitude is blankness that makes accidents happen.

-Robert Penn Warren

 

Aloneness, as opposed to loneliness, fosters a necessarily personal relationship with intuition and creativity. It allows us the uninterrupted time of feeling our way through the creative process without the pressure of finding immediate solutions to problems. Creative people often need periods of isolation to focus on what they are attempting to birth.

Some people require more external stimulation than others as a source for their creativity and need the energy of the sights and sounds of the outside world to trigger their imaginations. Generally though, they too, need the quiet time to be alone with themselves and their thoughts. “There are people who have a fear of solitude, of being alone with themselves, of questioning, attending to and assuming responsibility for their inner motivations. Aloneness allows thinking. Some people do not like to think.” (HAVE YOU EVER HAD A HUNCH? The Importance of Creative Thinking)

Creative aloneness can translate into creative productivity. I for one, prefer to produce solo because I can venture into whatever dwells in my mind and without interruptions, discover its potential. Yet, I also enjoy creative collaboration because it can take me outside the realms of my own work experiences and enter the artistic and thought processes of others. Plus it can be fun. Writing for me however, is a solitary profession and when fully engrossed in my work, I often have to postpone social interaction until later – until after I have captured a thought – or many thoughts flashing through my mind at the same time. Can one ever capture those simulthoughts?

Simulthoughts

Can you

catch an idea

flashing

through your mind?

Can you

leap higher

than the pinnacle

of your thought?

Can you

bounce

one thought

off another?

Can you bag

one hundred

simulthoughts?

(I TOUCHED A STAR IN MY DREAM LAST NIGHT)

 

Although when I paint, I too prefer to work in solitude, interruptions do not affect my creative flow in the same way that they do when I am sitting at my computer capturing elusive thoughts. When painting, I can simply pop in and out of the intuitive process with ease.