Why Choose a Creative Career in the Arts?

Jackson Pollock inspired painting. Artwork by Natalia Stanova

Why do some people take a risk of having a career in the arts? For the average human, they want stability in their life. So what gives the artist the freedom to take such a risky path? I’ve always wondered how if I had become a lawyer or a dentist, if I’d have a fulfilled life.

When I was in college my grandmother paid for me to have an aptitude test, and I stumped the lady giving the test. She told me she had no idea what I’d be good at. She said that I just need to pick something and become an expert in it. I would only thrive if people were asking me for my advice on my wealth of knowledge and expertise in a field of study. She also said my brain was like a popcorn machine where there was no “off” button, and she worried that I lose focus quickly and would be bored with a traditional career. She said I could probably make a great teacher because I could always come up with new ideas, but she thought I’d feel unfilled in a classroom with a lot of structure. Also, I have severe dyslexia. When she gave me one of the tests, she handed me a white sheet of paper and told me to write as much as I could on the white sheet about any idea I wanted to and she would time me. I wrote front and back of the page— with many grammatical errors and misspellings— but with lots of ideas. She said she had never tested anyone with this level of ideaphoria. Ideaphoria is “the capacity for creative thought or imagination”. So my creative brain works at a hyper-speed that many people can’t understand or keep up with. So, she said it’s a borderline kind of genius trait, but I if I chose a boring career I would feel very unfulfilled. She also said that I would always need to have a goal in front of me that I felt like it was impossible to achieve in order to feel challenged enough. And that I would thrive in that impossibility of trying to achieve it.

So I wondered if other creatives have similar brains where their popcorn machine is highly active and they need constant stimulus to not get bored with life. And maybe that is why some people pick creative careers that seem more risky because they enjoy the risk— it’s like an adrenaline hit that they need while pursuing their dream.

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