I do get frustrated with people who seem to be hell bent on stifling creativity. One of the many projects I am involved with seems to be no more than a group of people who are careering headlong to the central reservation, and instead of being in a panic, seem to be unbuckling their seat belts and laughing as they go. The thing that they don’t seem to be able to realise is that it is they, not anyone else, who will suffer, and this has started to happen. In the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, she describes such people as “Crazymakers”, and it is a phrase that seems to have crept into our life quite a lot. Her definition is as follows;
"Crazymakers are those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive and powerfully persuasive. And for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive.
"Crazymakers create dramas--but seldom where they belong. Crazymakers are often blocked creatives themselves. Afraid to effectively tap their own creativity, they loath to allow that same creativity in others. It makes them jealous. It makes them threatened. It makes them threatened at your expense."
Now Julia’s book might appear a little too righteous for my cynical old mind, but the phrase seems perfect for this kind of person. I will await the next week of ructions, over-reactions, criticism and outright lying, and I will spend that time telling myself that this is just a bunch of “Crazymakers”. It makes me smile, and in some ways seems to help, so I shall be forever indebted to Julia for this lovely phrase.
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