Creativity: "Impulsivity Gone Right"

Is there a link between ADHD and creativity, or is that just cope for those of us diagnosed with "diabetes of the brain"?

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.

- Christopher Morley, ‘To A Child’

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Before we start diving into specific advice and techniques around living with a creative mind and increasing your output, it’s worth addressing the relationship between ADHD and creativity.

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What is creativity?

I’m not going to spend a heap of time here, because (a) this is a Substack for people with short attention spans, and (b) while I could give you a dry, science-backed definition of it, creativity is one of those things where you know it when you see it. To attempt to capture it sort of misses the essence of what the thing is in the first place. It’s mapping the colour gradient of a sunset, or measuring the atomic particles of an aurora.

At the same time, it helps to know what you’re looking at. Perhaps you’re seeing the smoldering of a distant volcanic eruption, or the tint of your own glasses. Knowledge matters.

Paul White, an expert writer and lecturer in creativity, has been immersed in the creative world for longer than I’ve been alive (which is quite a feat, because I’m getting pretty creaky). Over the course of his career, he says he eventually came to understand creativity thus: “creativity is about building something”. Creativity is a process.¹

That bears repeating.

Creativity is a process.

Not a thing you either have, or don’t have. All humans are born with innate creativity. Yes, even the accountants.

Julia Cameron, author of ‘The Artist’s Way’, writes fiercely and unapologetically about this. “I don’t teach people to be creative,” she says. “I teach them to let themselves be creative”². Gabor Mate, healer and wellness thinker, says something similar: “Many of us don’t need to uncover anything to be creative, only to reconnect with what was lost or disregarded long ago.”³

All humans have creativity, but if you have ADHD, you’re probably a particularly creative thinker for at least three reasons: