Cultural Creative Theory of Genius

Creative genius as a product and
creator of culture

The cultural creative theory directly links the manifestation of genius with creativity, which represents the deep true nature of genius, the substantive way of its existence and realization.
In turn, creativity constitutes the very essence, substance and the very tissue of genius, in which it reaches its highest and most perfect level of manifestation. Not only that, following the methodological principle of studying the phenomenon in its ideal manifestation, we can say that it is the study of genius that allows us to highlight the deep patterns of creativity, to reveal the wealth of its embodiments in their highest fullness and brightness.
“If we evaluate productivity objectively,” wrote Edouard Lucas, “namely, as the transformation of the existent into value, as the transformation of the temporary into the eternal, then genius is identical to the highest productivity, and genius is continuously productive because it is creativity that is its essence, it is the transformation of the word into deed”.
Thus, the essence of human existence as creativity is revealed and embodied in culture.
Through culture, the genius enters into a dialogue with the spiritual historical experience of mankind fixed in symbolic forms, acquaints himself with the creative achievements of his predecessors, and revives and creates new cultural meanings in his own work.
“Culture and its meanings,” wrote Oswald Spengler, “do not live by themselves, but only through the creative activity of a person inspired by them”. Culture can be understood as a becoming, as a creative process, a stream of creative socio-cultural evolution, within which the genius breathing, living and self-actualizing, creates culture, his works and himself. The well-known statement that man creates culture and culture creates man can be strengthened by the formula that man and culture are one and they change synchronously in the flow of creativity.
Thus, K.A. Svasyan writes: “Culture is all-human, understood, however, not iconically, but dynamically. Its protophenomenon is not a culturological scheme, but a universal personality, and one sound of Goethe’s name is saturated with more propaedeutic meaning than other weighty monographs. In this sense, one can read Novalis’s profound saying: “All men are variations of a certain ideal individual”.
From a universal point of view, any creative effort made by a genius leads to a simultaneous qualitative change in the object, symbolic, internal and social worlds, the higher spheres of which constitute the body of culture.

Thus, such well-known theories of creativity as divergent thinking (J. Guilford), self-actualization (A. Maslow), lateral thinking (E. Bono), Janusian thinking (A. Rothenberg), bisociation (A. Kostler), creation of remote associations (S. Mednick), creative intelligence (J. Guilford, H. Gardner, R. Sternberg), as well as component (T. Amabile) and systems (M. Csikszentmihalyi) express manifestations of individual components of creativity or their combinations.
D. Simonton and V. Cassandro note that in reality there is practically no connection between high test scores in creativity, divergent thinking and success in practical spheres of creative activity. The personality of a genius is a complex multidimensional construct that includes such integral and interrelated components as personality, intelligence, divergent thinking and productivity.
It is culture, generating and integrating different worlds, spiritual, scientific, artistic, managerial and technical creativity, that is the generative core, the creative matrix, the deployment of which will reveal the essence of regularities and universal mechanisms of creativity and genius. In this sense, the socio-cultural (L. S. Vygotsky, L. M. Cohen, V. P. Glăveanu) and cultural-evolutionary theories of creativity proposed by D. Simonton, M. Csikszentmihalyi, D. Feldman, H. Gruber, L. Gabora are of special importance for the disclosure of the essence of genius.
According to H. Rickert: “the essence of culture always remains unchanged: all cultural phenomena contain an embodiment of a recognized value for the sake of which these phenomena were created or, if they already existed, they were nurtured by man”..
The world of culture determines and forms the creative value and meaning position of the individual, which is the key determinant of the creativity of the genius, whose spiritual-action embodiments form and enrich culture. The creation of new values and meanings, which in their pure form constitute the core of culture, is the highest level of creativity, the prerogative and unique distinction of a genius.
By recreating and creating culture, genius improves all worlds simultaneously, including the inner one, creating itself as a value and meaningful universe and as a vital unity of culture.
The creative vision, as an active, value-determined, personal attitude to the world, as a creative power of apperception and meaning-making, is the basis of creative and culturogenic activity of genius.
The essence of genius can be revealed by analyzing creativity not as a process, a person or a product and environment, but as a dynamic creativity space, a holistic flow, the poles of which are the creative value-sense stance of the individual and the world of culture, understood as a work of genius. This creative flow is realized in the form of creative vision of the world by the personality, the perceptual-generative pole of which is the creative stance, the generating field – the highest creative state, and the effective structuring principle – the creative method.

The theory of creative stance and creative
method of genius

This theory states that genius is based on a creative attitude, a creative state and a universal creative method of interaction between genius and the world.
In the process of creative dialogue with the world, genius creates its own, creative method, constituted both by the fixed most successful and productive methods of creativity and by the received by systematic cognition and revelations given to it, explicit and implicit knowledge of the deep regularities and universal mechanisms of creativity. “That is why genius,” M. Arnaudov noted, “willingly approaches the theorist, from whom he expects a shortening of his path and every kind of relief in his work.
According to A. Drozdov’s assumption, one of the factors of A. Einstein’s outstanding achievement was his construction of some general model of innovation during his work as a clerk in the patent office.
The holistic, planetary vision of the world, strategies and creative method of a genius, which mediate between the subject and the world, are themselves holographic copies of the model of the holistic universe and reflect universal patterns and mechanisms of its unfolding. In this case, the essence of genius is revealed by the initial generative matrix built on the basis of universal laws of world development, expressed through pairs of opposite, inter-directed, but mutually coordinated and interrelated mechanisms of creativity.
The condition for a productive creative dialogue between a genius and the world is the realization of an integral multilevel system of oppositely directed but interrelated mechanisms that interpenetrate, strengthen and cause each other, manifest themselves simultaneously, creating certain generative configurations that depend on the type of creativity and individuality of the subject, on his state of mind and the “pattern” of specific circumstances.

Table 1: The primordial generative matrix of creativity
Initial constitutive structure mechanisms of multilevel
creative dialogue of a personality with the world

Universal mechanisms of creativity

The universality and essence of these mechanisms of creativity are the reason why each of them can be the core, the essential nucleus of an independent artistic and individual creative method. Thus, introduced by V. Shklovsky in his article “Art as a technique” (1917), the technique of “defamiliarization”, which consists of the ability to perceive the familiar, everyday world “as if” for the first time, to make the familiar seem strange in order to provoke new ways of thinking.
This ability to see rather than recognize objects was the basis of an independent artistic method that gave rise to the literary trend of Russian formalists.
In addition, a separate universal mechanism of creativity, in a concentrated form reflecting the fundamental regularity and tendency of world development, can serve as an independent explanatory principle of the phenomenon of genius.

1. Idealization. Life activity and creativity of a genius in its essence represent the way of search, approval and realization of great ideas, higher values and ideals. ” – C. Lambroso wrote, that the only, favourite idea, which constituted the purpose and happiness of their lives, completely possessed these great minds and as if served as a guiding star for them.
Genius consciously or unconsciously recognizes and grasps the ideal essence of the object, and sees and mentally constructs its ideal image. The genius has the courage and generosity to see in the object, in his neighbour its hidden, ideal core, to present them more perfect than they are in reality, to endow them with qualities corresponding to the ideal, to awaken and help realize the potentially better and perfect.
For the genius, the ideal appears as a “spark of the absolute” formalized, embodied in a perfect image. The absolute is grasped as the supreme meaning, formalized and saturated with values as an ideal, realized as an idea and operationalized as the goal and supertask of creativity.
The ideal for the genius is formed as a moment of reality, as an inner, deeply intimate final goal of his aspirations, embodied as a perfect image in art, as a consistent and illuminating truth model in science, as relationships built on justice and love – in social life, as conscience and categorical imperative in the inner world of the individual.
“I know too well what my goal is,” said J.W. Goethe, “and I am too firmly convinced that in the end, I stand on the right path to pay my attention to gossip, I am enough with the opportunity to write what I feel, and feel what I write”.
The ideal appears as an inner superiority, as a standard of perfection, as the resolution of all key contradictions, as the embodiment of the ideas of truth, beauty and usefulness and at the same time as a tantalizing prospect, as the ultimate goal of aspiration and creativity. Idealization is mainly directed to the future and manifests itself in the form of the creation and implementation of “ideal plan” (R. Ackoff), “supertask” (“sverhzadacha») (K. Stanislavsky), “ideal end result” (G. Altshuller).

2. Problematization. Genius is especially acutely experiencing the tragedy of the epoch, the imperfection of total existence, the dramatic nature of social processes and the suffering of every ordinary person. In each phenomenon he is able to see the deep conflicts, and in the object its essential contradictions and imperfections. Genius in his work tries to find a solution to global problems, find answers to eternal, universal questions, to penetrate into the deepest secrets of existence. According to Ch. Lambroso, geniuses have always been greedy to solve the most difficult and incomprehensible issues.
Geniuses were characterized by the ability to see the dark side of things, they are always attracted to asymmetry, voids and abysses. Geniuses are directed to the perception and search for the shortcomings of objects, their gaps, disharmonies, imperfections and key contradictions. In this sense, this ability is close to the understanding of creativity by E. Torrance, who as its essential characteristic distinguished precisely the ability to acute perception of flaws, disharmonies and gaps in knowledge.
Genius is distinguished by taste and readiness for problems, riddles, mysteries, confusing, unusual and paradoxical situations. At the same time, the scale and depth of his accomplishments allow him to overcome the object-thing, problematic approach to the world, elevating him to an intimate knowledge of the most intimate secrets of existence. To recognize the creative subjectivity of man,” wrote G. Marcel, “means to understand his being as a “mystery” and not as a problem. Mystery (le mystere) is something that captures me completely, conquering my senses. It erases the boundary between subject and object, merges the I and the not-I, involves my whole existence.”
Н. Berdyaev wrote: “It is impossible creative philosophical thought if there is no sphere of problematic, no agonizing efforts to solve new questions, no search for truth, which does not fall from above in a ready-made, frozen form, no struggle of the spirit.
At the same time, genius is distinguished by the ability to extremely exacerbate the contradictions, intensify the differences between opposites and at the same time see them functioning in a single, holistic bundle.
Realization of the simultaneity of unrelated events, “nested” in each other different spaces and meanings is often the reason for bold new discoveries. Thus, according to A. Einstein, he was deeply struck and tormented by the unity and simultaneity of the existence of different in nature electric and magnetic fields, classical causality and randomness of phenomena, and their discreteness and continuity. It was unbearable for him to realize that one and the same phenomenon could be caused by completely different in nature causes.
Understanding the essential duality, polarity, and problematic and contradictory nature of the world, geniuses consciously used problematization as a creative technique to penetrate into its secret depths.
M.M. Bakhtin wrote: “In Dostoevsky’s novels, questions are posed with such force that only extreme solutions are admissible”. All his characters are asked a tense and extremely dramatic question about the meaning of life. “The secret of Kafka, – thought A. Camus – in this fundamental ambiguity. He is always balancing between the natural and the extraordinary, the personal and the universal, the tragic and the every day, absurdity and logic. These oscillations run through all his works and give them sound and significance. To understand an absurd work, it is necessary to go through all the paradoxes, to give force to all the contradictions.”
The distinction and fusion of two equally valuable interacting worlds – the fantastic and the real, which, in fact, are only manifestations of a single, mysterious super-real world, is a cross-cutting motif in the works of such outstanding masters as E. Hoffmann, F. M. Hoffman, F. M. Kaufman,  F.M. Dostoevsky, E. Poe, H. Borges, H. Cortasar and G. Marquez.
Since genius has the ability not only to simultaneously keep in the field of attention various contradictory characteristics of the object, but also simultaneous or alternately apply oppositely directed methods of creative interaction with the world.
The realization of the bundle: problematization-idealization implies the definition of the essential problem, which is based on the contradiction between the ideal and reality, and its solution according to the ideal plan with orientation on the ideal final result. In this case, the heightened awareness of opposites is accompanied by the representation of their simultaneous functioning in a single holistic bundle. In addition, genius, as no one else with readiness and effectively applies in his life and work such a universal creative technique as turning harm into benefit.

3. Decentration. The aspiration and ability to mentally replace habitual connections with unusual ones, loosening and destroying traditional perceptions is an essential feature of genius. Only genius by virtue of its originality, self-sufficiency, conviction and subordination to the ideal goal, is able to freely overcome the inertia of scientific and social thought, functional fixedness, stereotypes and templates in all spheres of reality. Konstantin Balmont expressed the essence of decentration as a coiled mechanism and fixed personality trait of genius with the words: “I am a sudden fracture, I am a playing thunder”.
Decentration is also manifested in the desire to generate a variety of approaches to the object of interaction, in the ability to change one’s position and take into account all kinds of points of view on reality. “On the subject,” wrote V.V. Rozanov, – it is necessary to have exactly 1000 points of view. These are the “coordinates of reality” and reality is grasped only through 1000”.
Generativity, the plurality of approaches are expressed in a special principle of ancient Roman aesthetics – copia (from Latin copia – multitude, abundance), following which was considered a sign and dignity of great literature. The essence of copia consisted in richness, an abundance of details, epithets, and variations. In his “Praise of Folly” Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam successfully uses this technique, examining his main theme from a variety of angles, highlighting it in a silly, funny, scientific, philosophical and religious light.
Such multiplicity and variation – R. Grudin (1996) – is not just a technique of expression, but a method of research and revealing the essence of things. This technique was successfully used by Rabelais, as well as by Montaigne, who liked to explore a subject from all possible points of view. On the other hand, decentration makes it possible to generate as many hypotheses, ideas and principles of problem-solving as possible and at the same time ensures their meaningful diversity, diversity and different levels.
Decentration is an essential feature of polyphonic thinking, understood as the ability to think in different planes, and different coordinates, as the ability to grasp the multivalence of the world. (V.S. Rotenberg). At the same time, the action of the mechanism of decentration underlies such types and manifestations of creativity as divergent (J. Guilford) and lateral (E. Bono) thinking.

4. Simplification. Genius is understood as the ability to clarify, the ultimate simplification of diversity, as the desire and ability to order and tame chaos. Genius in his work strives for the ultimate meaningful simplicity, purity and transparency of form, clarity and clarity of thought. Simplicity, combined with depth and semantic multilayeredness, is the ideal, goal and method of genius.
Almost all genius titans bowed before simplicity, which they identified with beauty, and embodied its principles in their work. They were characterized by the pursuit of the very essence, the core of the world, the utmost assemblage, concentration, self-restraint, restraint and calm concentration.
The mechanism and technique of symplization manifests itself as a striving for the ultimate simplification of the object, for getting rid of everything unimportant and confusing, as the achievement of lightness, clarity and transparency of form and at the same time depth, concision and precision of the content.
“The principle of simplicity” is one of the most universal and fundamental principles of the structure and development of the material and ideal world. It is most succinctly and metaphorically expressed in the famous principle called “Occam’s razor”, which states that: “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” (W. Occam, 1285-1349). “Every natural action,” Leonardo da Vinci wrote,” is produced by nature in the shortest way that can be found. “‘Every weight tends to fall toward the centre of gravity by the shortest route.’” These realized objective laws of nature, rolled up and consolidated in the form of techniques to penetrate into reality and became for the genius rules of creativity and life.
In science, the principle of simplicity is an effective heuristic principle and the most important criterion of scientificity, allowing one to choose as true the simplest cognitive constructions.
Thus, Newton and Laplace believed that nature is simple and all its infinite variety is reduced to a small number of laws, and Poincaré emphasized the connection between their intuitive obviousness and simplicity, between truth and beauty. A. Einstein, wrote that a theory is the better “the simpler its premises, the more varied the subjects it relates, and the wider the field of its application,”” and the criterion of a theory’s truth is its simplicity. “The more fundamental the regularity, the simpler it can be formulated”, wrote P. Kapitsa.
In practical life, the principle of simplicity is manifested in the natural desire to minimize efforts, optimization and achieving the goal by minimizing costs. In the process of cognition, the principle of simplicity acts as a law of economy of thinking, introduced into science by E. Mach.
Representatives of the linguistic school of A.A. Potebny applied the principle of economy of thinking to explain the process of creativity. Thus, D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, P.K. Engelmeyer, V.I. Khartsiev, B.A. Lezin believed that language, allowing to reflect a variety of content in one image-symbol, saves thinking and energy, and the saved energy is spent on the process of scientific and artistic creativity.
In Hegel’s opinion, it is lucidity and transparency of form that is the sign of a talented work.
In turn, George Sand understood simplicity as “the limit of experience and the last effort of genius”. It is this idea with utmost clarity poetic language expressed by B. Pasternak:
Assured of kinship with all things And with the future closely knit We can’t but fall – a heresy! – To unbelievable simplicity. Simplization was one of the founding aesthetic principles of acmeism (from Greek akme – the highest degree of something, blossoming power, the best age of man”.) – a movement in poetry, the main goal of which was to get rid of ‘the beliefs of difficult forms’ and vague revelations of the symbolists. Liberation from all the incomprehensible and dark in art, from the multivalence and fluidity of images and complicated metaphoricism. The founders and representatives of this movement N. S. Gumilev, O. E. Mandelstam and A. A. Akhmatova were characterized by the desire for “beautiful clarity” (M. Kuzmin), clarification of the meaning of things, “clarism” (from Greek clarus – clarity), a return to the real, vital world, to the spiritualized subject matter, to the exact meaning of the word and the elements of nature. The most important task was to recognize and convey the “self-value of each phenomenon”. “Love the existence of the thing itself and your own existence more than yourself: that is Acme­ism’s highest commandment.” wrote O. E. Mandelstam.
In Eastern culture, in particular, in the philosophy of Taoism, the principle of simplicity or the principle of economical and optimal action was represented in the form of the “principle of non-action” (wu-wei), which was understood as getting rid of all vanity, superfluous, including purposeful actions that go against the natural course of things. The principle of non-action manifested itself as non-interference in the natural order of things and the course of events, as “following things” and “doing things in accordance with the principles”. Accordingly, creativity is understood as, first of all, contemplation, listening and comprehension of the rhythm of the universe, as well as perfect action, coordinated with the natural course of the world order.
A genius, a perfect man, a noble husband in the Eastern culture is one who is in harmony with the structure, rhythm and meanings of the universe, who in his creative work merges with the heavenly and natural naturalness, spontaneously self-actualizes together with things. The perfect man, the sage is not a subject of activity, individuality in the Western sense, he is deprived of the egoistic, goal-oriented self, he acts in a free and independent way, at the same time remaining completely dependent on the laws of the universe
The initial fundamentality of the principle of non-action (wu-wei) was the reason for its transformation into a philosophical and psychological and aesthetic attitude of the whole Eastern culture. A special place is occupied by the principles of simplicity and contemplative non-action in Japanese art, where they act as an organizing principle and artistic ideal and the basis of the aesthetic worldview.
Japanese art is characterized by parsimony, coagulation, invisibility of means of expression, and conviction that the beautiful lies in the small. The infinity of meanings and inexhaustible content is conveyed by means of a stroke, a fragment, a “meaningful default”, a hint, a signal to experience the world. Я. Kawabata, a master of simple, refined and elegant style, argued that the most difficult problem of artistic creation is the problem of simplicity, the ability to see and convey things as they really are.
Simplicity, refined psychologism, and brevity permeate the art and daily life of the Japanese realized through such aesthetic rules and mechanisms as Wabi-sabi (Jap. lit. “modest simplicity”). Leonard Koren wrote: “The meaning of wabi-sabi is in the insignificant and hidden, experimental and ephemeral: in things delicate and fleeting, inaccessible to the rough eye…Simplicity is the heart of wabi-sabi”. At the same time, exquisite simplicity, melancholic refinement of Japanese art, and muted and restrained forms, are combined with strict simplicity, rigid self-discipline, irrepressible spontaneity and the power of a concentrated spirit.
The principle of simplicity is asserted with special force in Japanese poetry – haiku (hokku). It cultivates love for small forms, extreme brevity and concision of poetic forms. The art of writing haiku is the ability to describe in three lines a moment of life in which eternity shines through. One of the main aesthetic guidelines of this genre is the principle of “sabi”, which calls for seeking beauty in simplicity, in the small, natural, ordinary and unnoticeable.
“Sabi,” Suzuki wrote, ”suggests simplicity, naturalness, unconditionedness, refinement, freedom”. It is but a hint, a signal to experience the world. In the simplicity of images lies true beauty, believed M. Basho, poet and theorist of verse, one of the most famous representatives of the genre of three verses (haiku). Subsequently, the great poets Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki expanded, deepened and democratized the theme of haiku, filling it with humour and the truth of real life.
The realization of the “decetration-simplification” linkage is a universal developmental mechanism consisting in the generation of diversity and selection of optimal options, it permeates and structures creative thinking, manifesting itself in the alternation of the stages of “ideation and selection”, “generation of ideas and their evaluation”.
«It takes two to invent anything. Paul Valéry argued. – The one makes up combinations; the other chooses, recognizes what he wishes and what is important to him in the mass of the things which the former has imparted to him. What we call genius is much less the work of the first one than the readiness of the second one to grasp the value of what has been laid before him and to choose it».

5. Identification consists in identifying oneself with other people and objects of the surrounding world, in actively living in them, as well as in experiencing one’s connections and relations with them. Genius is distinguished by absolute immersion in the world, self-forgetful dissolution in it and the desire to merge with it into a single whole. This property is manifested in deep involvement in his favourite work, in the fate of his heroes and in experiencing the lives of many thousands of people.
The ontological basis for the allocation of an independent mechanism of identification is the essential connection between objects and phenomena of the material world, their genetic unity and identity, expressed in the ancient Sanskrit formula “Tat twam asi” – “I am you”, “Everything in me and I in everything”.
А. Kostler (1964) distinguished a special class of such higher emotions as sympathy, identification, admiration, awe, and surprise, which represent the realization of universal tendencies of belonging and self-transcendence. It is through the presence of the feelings of belonging, identification and affiliation that a profound experience of higher unity becomes possible, a sense of oneself as part of a wider whole, which may be Nature, Humanity, the Universal Order, the Soul of the World (Anima Mundi), God.
Identification is the core and essential mechanism of such a universal, cross-cutting ontological phenomenon as love, which, according to S.L. Rubinstein, is the basis of human existence, the affirmation of its existence and, at the same time, a way of cognizing the unique individuality of the other.
М. Scheler wrote that love for nature and man involves going beyond oneself and affirming, encouraging and blessing the other being. “Therefore love was for us at the same time that primal act by which a being, without ceasing to be this one delimited being, abandons itself in order to share and participate in another being as an ens intentionale…”.
At the same time, love itself was understood as a kind of universal creative force acting in everything. Love is dynamic,” wrote M. Scheler, it manifests itself as self-expansion, the experience of contact, and involvement with the other, it is the beating becoming and growth of things. The same view of love was held by N. Berdyaev: “Love is a way out of ‘this world’, from the heaviness, constraint and thorniness of the world into another world, a world of freedom and unity”. “Love is creativity.”
In addition, based on Augustine’s thought that only in the act of love there is self-disclosure of the object itself and its giving of itself to the cognizer, M. Scheler argued that no knowledge is possible without the tendency to get out of oneself, without love for the object. This understanding of cognition is akin to the Romantic worldview: “You can learn only what you love, and the deeper and fuller the knowledge should be, the stronger, more powerful and more lively should be the love, moreover, the passion. – J.W. Goethe said “Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love”.
And G. Heine also argued that “The deepest truth blossoms only from the deepest love”.
Creative identification is self-transcendence, as overcoming one’s atomicity and dissolving in the world in order to penetrate into its deepest essence and master it. With the help of the identification mechanism, a person immerses himself into the objects of animate and inanimate nature, transfers himself into their time, space and causality, experiences and cognizes their inner impulses, circumstances and logic of development. A. Bergson adhered to a similar view of identification, identifying it with intuition, which he understood as a transfer inside the object, feeling into it, merging with its deep essence.
According to A. Melik-Pashaev (1991), a truly creative, artistic attitude of a person to nature consists in a conscious, direct experience of his essential unity with it.
The artist “goes away from himself”, unlocks his psychological boundaries, joins otherness, other-consciousness and in moments of creative inspiration becomes the self-consciousness and voice of nature, an exponent of its life.
Realized experience of his direct unity with the world leads to the use of identification as an artistic method, as an effective and efficient technique of artistic creation. Thus, one of the postulates of Chinese aesthetics is the statement: “To paint a tree, one must feel oneself as a tree”. M. Bace said that the main condition for writing a poem, is to bring one’s mind into conformity with emptiness and thus turn into objects of the surrounding world. “Of the pine-tree learn from the pine-tree. Of the bamboo learn from the bamboo.”.”
A. Matisse expressed an idea very close to the Buddhist worldview: “ When you draw a tree, you must feel yourself gradually growing with it. ”. The Armenian artist M. Saryan asserted the same: “It is necessary to dissolve in nature and dissolve it in oneself. Merge with nature”.
At the same time, magical, playful and artistic attitude to the world presupposes the writer’s living in all the characters and circumstances of his work, in animals, plants and inanimate objects, seeing and experiencing reality from their positions. It is the identification of oneself with the images of the characters, and is.
Survival and feeling in the inner world of his characters, experiencing their joys and sufferings, full, self-forgetful identification with them is one of the most productive techniques of literary creativity, the main source of emotional impact on the reader. C. Dickens unusually keenly worried about his heroes – he wept, laughed, and winked to himself while writing stories. F.M. Dostoevsky when describing dialogues spoke aloud and made gestures, and O. Balzac quarrelled with his heroes and shouted at them, and at the same time loved his heroes and worried about them. “In listening to these people, I could connect with their life, I felt their rags upon my back, I walked with my feet in their tattered shoes; their desires, their needs, all passed into my soul, and my soul passed into theirs; it was the dream of an awakened man. I became exasperated with them against the workshop foremen who tyrannized them or against the unfair practice that made them return many times without providing them with their pay. To abandon habits, to become another through this intoxication of the moral faculties and to play this game at will, such was my entertainment.”
G. Flaubert and M. Gorky experienced physical suffering together with their characters, and L.N. Tolstoy and L. Andreev became in life similar to those whom they described. I. Turgenev after reading “Holstomer” said to L. Tolstoy: “Listen, Lev Nikolayevich, right, have you ever been a horse”. Identification is often consciously or unconsciously applied in scientific and technical creativity. In doing so, researchers embed themselves in symbols, concepts, and geometric spaces. They visualize themselves in the form of the objects and mechanisms under study, and experience the effects of the many influences and unique circumstances of these objects. Besides, in inventive creativity empathy (personal analogy) is used as an independent effective technique for finding original solutions (W. Gordon, 1972; G.S. Altshuller, 1979).

6. Meditation (detachment) – is understood as a universal mechanism of creativity, consisting in detachment and sensual isolation from the external and internal world, in detachment and distancing from the objects of interaction, impassioned and fresh perception of their essences, connections, beauty and symmetry. The essence of meditation is to achieve a state of deepened concentration, during which one loses temporal and spatial orientation, overcomes dependence on the object and all phenomenal worlds, and liberates oneself from one’s biased, subjective “I”.
Meditation in the traditional sense is considered as a psychotechnical practice aimed at achieving an alternative state of consciousness. At the same time, the essence of meditation consists in detachment from the signals of the internal and external world, achieving a state of detachment and reduced reactivity, reaching a certain center of “awareness” and dissolving into the Supreme consciousness.
The result of the realization of the meditation mechanism is the achievement of detachment from the inner and outer world, taking the position of a pure, unbiased observer, temporary detachment, purification from one’s past and future, return to one’s self. Meditation helps to get rid of subjectivity, egoistic desires and aspirations, which lead to concentration on objects of personal importance and thus distort perception.
According to L.P. Grimak (1987), the reason for this state is the temporary disconnection and rest of the left hemisphere, which is accompanied by a feeling of inner renewal and purification. The world seems to open up anew and the freshness of the view that appears causes a feeling of joyful satisfaction, which is the beginning of all creativity.
Genius has always been characterized by the desire for solitude, for detachment from everyday life and routine, independence from public opinion, from the imperfection of current circumstances.
Preservation of the feeling of independence, unbound, inner freedom and sovereignty of spirit often became an independent goal and leitmotif of life realization: «The world was catching me and not caught», – said at the end of his life G. Skovoroda. At the same time, the sign of genius is the desire for absolute objectivity, impartiality, detachment from his narrow self and “Ability to overlook his own interest” (A. Schopenhauer).
In Eastern philosophy, the action of the universal mechanism of detachment was represented by such a generalized term, possessing metaphysical depth, ontological fundamentality and existential power, as non-attachment or impassivity.
The concept of non-attachment has served as the essential core of almost all Eastern ethical and philosophical systems and religions, manifesting itself in each of them with a variety of new semantic shades. Thus, in Hinduism it implies independence from the result of action, in Taoism as the achievement of emptiness and purity of mind, in Buddhism as the absence of desires and partiality, detachment from one’s own self and the phenomena of the sensual world, and in the major religions the rejection of everything that is not connected with the Absolute.
In Western philosophy, the universal mechanism of detachment manifested itself as an effective, constitutive principle of such movements as Stoicism (Seneca, Marcus Aurelius) and phenomenology (E. Husserl). Thus, for the Stoics, the model of a perfect man was a sage who had achieved virtue and apathy (from Greek apatheia – absence of suffering), understood as passion lessness, absence of affects, passions, ability to control oneself, as well as autarky (from Greek autarkeia – “self-sufficiency” ) – a state of independence from the outside world, other people and external circumstances.
In phenomenology, detachment is manifested in the form of realization of the principle of Epoché (from Greek epohe – “cessation”), which represents the exclusion of subjectivity, “bracketing” of the external world and scientific knowledge about it, as well as abstinence from judgments about the world. When making Epoché, “ wrote E. Husserl, ‘the subject excludes from the field of vision all the ideas, thoughts, judgments, evaluations piled up by thought and strives from the position of a ’pure observer” to make the essence of the subject accessible and obvious to himself.
In artistic creation, the idea of detachment or “aesthetic distance” was first put forward by F. Schiller. Goethe called this property of creative perception “naivete” – naivety. In turn, Novalis emphasized such an important characteristic of artistic creativity as “the art of making the object strange and at the same time recognizable and attractive”.
This principle was further developed in the works of V.B. Shklovsky (1915, 1929), who singled out an independent literary technique – defamiliarization (ostranenie). According to the author, the essence of this universal technique is that the writer, observing a familiar object, consciously puts himself in the position of a person who sees this betrayal for the first time.
The technique of defamiliarization allows to stir up the thing, to “take it out of the ordinary”, to break it out of a number of habitual associations. The use of this technique consists in the ability to consciously put oneself in the position of a person who sees an object for the first time and actually see the whole world in a new way by presenting it as strange and unfamiliar. Rabindranath Tagore wrote about such pure and direct perception: “Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”
“Defamiliarization is the main subject of art” – stated V. Shklovsky. The ability to detach oneself from the object of interaction and at the same time from oneself, to get rid of subjectivity and achieve a state of cold, objective “cognitive detachment” is the most important feature of any good writer. Thus, the effect of “defamiliarization” was used in his work by Leo Tolstoy, when, for example, he described an ordinary sofa with words that would be used by a person who knew nothing about the sofa and saw it for the first time.
Later B. Brecht (1948) wrote that the original principle of art and the main method of epic theatre is “the effect of alienation”. In this case, with the help of appropriate expressive means, the depicted ordinary phenomenon is alienated, alienated, made unfamiliar and appears from a new side. The essence of this technique “The alienation effect consists in turning the object of which it is to be made aware, to which one’s attention is to be drawn, from something ordinary, familiar, immediately accessible, into something peculiar, striking and unexpected.”.
The highest detachment leads to the overcoming of attachments, the destruction of habits, and the penetration into the true nature of things. The main purpose of the realization of this mechanism is to get rid of bias, subjectivity, and excessive emotionality.
Thus, the Goncourt brothers wrote: “Concepts are born in tranquility, in the sleep of spiritual activity. Emotions prevent the birth of books.” Max Ernst argued that the author should detachedly and coldly observe the birth of his own work, to trace all the phases of its development. Castaneda proposed a special mental exercise “stopping the world”, which consisted in perceiving things in their primordiality and in the rejection of any prior knowledge about them. In turn, N. Gogol and A. Chekhov wrote about the beneficial effect of coldness and alienation from the subject on their creativity. Art should be cold – believed I. Stravinsky. “a very cold music, absolutely cold, that will appeal directly to the spirit”.
“Defamiliarization,” believes G. G. Tulchinsky, ‘turns out to be inherent not only in art, but also in science, in general, any act of creative cognition and comprehension of reality’. Following Aristotle, who believed that “Philosophy begins with surprise”, A. Einstein argued that at the origins of scientific thinking lies “the act of surprise”, arising when “when perception comes into conflict with a sufficiently established for us world of concepts”. P. Mac-Cready, one of the most prolific inventors, wrote: “It is very important to start working with a blank sheet of paper – without any preconceptions.”
The realization of the “identification-meditation” bundle is an alternate and simultaneous activation of opposite mechanisms: complete identification of oneself with the object and detachment from it, loving inclusion and its impassioned contemplation. The archtypical position of detached attachment, formed in Hindu philosophy, contains in a coiled form the wisdom and creative productivity of the fundamental world-relationship. Here inside, in the lumen of the bundle, in the space of higher dimensions, bright peak experiences manifest themselves, and their intensity and amplitude can be as great as they wish, since in any case they are permeated by pure consciousness and subject to the free creative self.
M.M. Bakhtin (1929), when developing the problem of interaction with a work of art, emphasized that in order to understand it, it is necessary not only to “live” in it, but also to remain oneself, occupying a detached position of “non-attachment”.
This allows for a dialogue with the author and the work, in which the subject does not dissociate from himself, but also does not close in isolation. In artistic creation, it is the preservation of a transparent aesthetic distance from the object, the “permeability” of which allows one to identify with the object, to experience the effect of participation and presence, to combine the conventional and real plans of reality (E. Ballou).
In addition, the alternate application of these mechanisms, namely, polycyclic experiencing and detachment from the object, is the basis of “Synectics” (W. Gordon), the purpose of which is to awaken and activate creativity by “Making the strange familiar and making the familiar strange”.

7. Self-actualization is the most complete and free realization by a person of his internal and external possibilities, the holistic realization of his universal creative potentialities.
One of the essential features of genius is its desire to realize its high and daring plans, the greatness and beauty of the soul, wisdom and inner creative power, the desire for self-actualization and the ability to put oneself out to the end. “The purpose of creativity is self-giving, not a hype, not a success,” wrote B. Pasternak.
Self-actualization is understood as the unfolding of internal structures, which, at the highest stages of personal development, can represent designs, plans, and ideal models. Each realized opportunity gives birth to new ones and leads the subject to a new round of development, changes and renews the external world.
At the heart of self-actualization is the basic human need for self-fulfillment, which is realized through such manifestations of personality as self-giving, self-expression, self-assertion, and free self-development. “Indeed, the ability to manifest oneself worthily in one’s natural essence,” wrote Montaigne, ”is a sign of perfection and a quality almost divine”.
At the same time, it is a complete immersion in the present and the ability to scoop out the ideal from the actual reality, to see, release, and realize the hidden possibilities of objects and circumstances. Thus, Aristotle noted that “Every thing is perfect in action and imperfect in potency”, and the perfection of things consists in their actualization. In turn, A. Farabi noted that the beauty of an object consists in the optimal realization of its being.
The concept of self-actualization has special semantic shades in Eastern philosophy. Thus, A. Watts writes that the ideal of self-fulfilment in Taoism is the search for one’s own, unique way, following one’s own nature, achieving spontaneity and sincerity, and complete dedication.
Striving for creative self-fulfilment, to express the inner power and greatness of the soul, the whole variety of talents and creative power for the first time becomes an inherent quality of the Renaissance genius. This understanding of the essence of genius was also developed in Romanticism, in which the right of the creative person to free self-actualization, to express the innermost secrets and inexhaustible richness of the inner world was asserted with special force. Self-actualization is inseparably connected with self-improvement, and these two mutually directed processes are united in the process of individuation.
At the same time, self-actualization always expresses the inner activity of the personality, its ability to effort and conscious choice, its initiative aimed at self-mobilization and self-disclosure. Existentialism tells a person, – wrote J.P. Sartre, – that hope is only in his actions, and the only thing that allows a person to live is action. “There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is, therefore, nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.”
At the same time, self-actualization, the self-fulfilment of the genius, greater emphasis is placed on its self-objectification, the embodiment of its inner content in its works and shadeworks. “To be ourselves we need to be someone. ‒wrote Stanislaw Jerzy Lec and Pompey the Great asserted, ‘I need to swim, and there is no need to live’.
Self-actualization is always real actions, efforts and deeds, it is the realization of plans and ideal models, flexible reaction to changes in the internal and external world. It is the spontaneous and open realization of internal potencies that enriches the individual with new internal and external opportunities, and leads to his creative growth.
In his work “Towards a Psychology of Being” (1962), A. Maslow associates self-actualization with peak experiences, certain dynamic experiences that arise at the moment of optimal functioning. Later A. Maslow (1970) distinguished a special, higher type of transcendent self-actualization. In this case, the personality overcame its own self, experienced peak, transcendent experiences, became receptive to such higher values as beauty, love, and truth, and acquired a holistic, global consciousness.
Self-actualization is the basic mechanism of existence, self-fulfillment and the development of personality. It is inextricably linked with self-improvement, and these two mutually directed processes are united in the process of individuation. “Individuation,” wrote C. Jung, ”means: to become a single entity and, since by individuality we mean our deep inner, ultimate and incomparable uniqueness, to become our own Self.
Because of this, “individuation” could also be translated as “self-creation” or “self-embodiment”.
“Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as ‘individuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as ‘coming to selfhood’ or ‘self-realization’ ”.

Striving for open and sincere self-expression, disclosure and liberation of one’s unique potentialities is the most important condition and the most effective method of artistic creation. So even the Chinese artist Xie He (5th century) among the 6 laws of painting formulated by him, emphasized the first and most important of them (“qiyun shengdong”) – Spirit Resonance (qiyun) spiritualized rhythm and vitality (shengdong) or lively movement.
The original dynamism of creativity was also expressed in the philosophical and aesthetic category “ziran” (literally ‘self-so-ness’, self-naturalness and spontaneity), which reflected the need for full and sincere self-expression in the creative process. The artist, concentrating and dissolving in the subject and following the brush, nevertheless follows his own path, conveying in the drawing the uniqueness, purity and uniqueness of his soul.
Self-actualization manifests itself as spontaneous activity, a complex game with the world, a battlefield exploration, superimposing oneself on the world and waiting for its reaction.
G. Moore wrote” I sometimes begin a drawing with no preconceived problem to solve, with only the desire to use pencil on paper… but as my eye takes in what is so produced, a point arrives where some idea crystallizes, and then a control and ordering begins to take place”.
This mechanism is extremized in some modernist art movements, which understand creativity as an act of full, spontaneous and uninhibited expression of true human nature, not distorted by multiple theories and social influences. Thus, in one of the most influential artistic movements of the twentieth-century expressionism (from Fr. expression – expression), the main goal of the artist was not the reflection of life, but the transmission of them through the inner world and the ultimate expression of pure essence. Its main principles were subjectivism, heightened emotionality and fierce expression, dynamism, expressed exaltation, excitement and tension of feelings, irrationality, drama, and fantastic grotesque, drama of universal conflicts. Among the creative geniuses who were characterized by the desire and ability to essential self-expression are Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Wassily Kandinsky (painting), Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner (music), Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Georg Trakl, Johan August Strindberg, Leonid Andreev (literature).
Self-actualization is a carrying wave, all other mechanisms as its various reflections and manifestations can coherently superimpose on it, generating a burst-like opening of reserves, a resonance called creativity.

8. Personification is understood as a conscious endowment of objects of the external world with subjectivity, independence and activity, attributing to them human features and properties, giving them the ability of self-development, self-deployment and independent actualization of new, sometimes insignificant and weak, but necessary properties.
At the same time, the main purpose of personification is the activation of interaction objects, their release, unfolding and strengthening of their essence. By means of the realization of this mechanism, it is possible to reveal the unique possibilities of the object, to let the internal source of energy and force to run, to make them move independently to the ideal. At the same time, the development of objects’ own activity is achieved by creating integral, self-generating and active structures capable of self-development.
В. Wundt (1897) argued that the basis of mythological thinking is the deep, essential property of human nature to endow unrecognized phenomena with supernatural powers, and abilities to magical influence. This human property can change, be filled with new content, but always retain its essence. This property is the mechanism of personification, which evolves from subconscious, performing protective functions, to a conscious creative technique and method.
Personification is a universal mechanism of mythological thinking, which consists in animating and endowing things, plants, animals, ideas and abstract concepts with human traits and properties. Thus, the hymns of the Rigveda mention 3399 gods, the god of food, grass, tongue, fire, sky and love.
The most primitive forms of mythological thinking are: animism – animation of nature and fetishism – endowing objects with magical qualities.
At the same time, the mechanism of personification reflects deeper and more universal principles of interaction between a person and the world. Its essence is expressed in conscious activation of the opposite pole of interaction, in increasing the significance and activation of the external world, in self-actualization of other people, in strengthening, developing and “liberation” of the objects of the external world.
The philosophical foundations of this mechanism come from the famous Taoist principle of “non-doing” (wu-wei), which consists in allowing nature to follow its own path, in refusing any violent change in the naturalness of things, in complete subordination to the world, giving it the right to activity, in following its objective laws.
Personification is also manifested in the universal principle of laissez-faire (principle of non-interference or “let (things) pass”), which consists in the ability to optimally use the “energy” and opportunities of the external environment, in allowing circumstances to move independently to the necessary result and problems to spontaneously disappear and be resolved.
Geniuses have always been characterized by deep inner recognition and admiration of the beauty of the internal order of the Universe, and submission to the deepest and most essential laws and principles of the world. The wisdom of geniuses is expressed in the words of Marcus Aurelius: “Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.” It is not necessary to interfere with the natural course of things, to let events move at their own pace, only to help them. Let everything go ‘by itself’, its own way. “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Personification, to a certain extent, is understood as sacrifice, which consists in giving up one’s actual, imperfect self for the birth of a new true, creative self. B. Russell wrote. that he became happy and strong only when he ceased to concern himself.
The initial sacrifice, which lies at the heart of all creation, manifests itself in the genius as the ultimate self-sacrifice, renunciation of all ordinary goods and pleasures, subordinating himself to his work, idea, and vocation. Self-sacrifice, renunciation of the subjective self, always generates the activity of the second pole of the universal dialogue “Person – World”, causes the birth of music, and leads to the manifestation of the highest and purest essences of the world. In this case, there is not just self-restraint and renunciation of one’s self, but going beyond the closed system, overcoming one’s atomic Ego and joining the external creative force, giving the imperfect self to the perfect world.
R. Kipling wrote about the role of his personal demon in creativity. “Mine came to me early when I sat bewildered among other notions and said; ‘Take this and no other.’ I obeyed and was rewarded…When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey”.

In addition, the suspension of the activity of your actual self is accompanied by opening yourself to the world, achieving a state of extreme openness and heightened sensitivity. The Creator consciously increases receptivity, becoming “the perfect channel for positive force” (Krishnamurti). In the words of M. Heidegger, he begins to “listen to being,” and when he succeeds in hearing the voice of being, “concrete solutions” begin to come by themselves. It is not “subjectivism” and transformative activity, Heidegger says, that allows man to solve all problems, but “openness of being”, finding his true “home”. Vincent Van Gogh described the process of his creativity in the following way: “ I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have put it down in shorthand”.
The creative essence of the mechanism of personification consists precisely in harnessing the energy and positive power of objects and circumstances, in active co-creation with the animated, awakened activated and amplified objects of the external world. Possession of surrounding reality,” wrote T. Lipps (1903), ”occurs to the extent that we attribute to external objects our own power, activity, will, and desires.
Creative personification includes the conscious formation of self-sufficient, self-generating structures of the external and internal world, which begin to serve the subject of creativity, and their energy is actively used to achieve their goals.A genius in the process of his creativity creates virtual worlds, self-sufficient active structures, which have independence, and efficiency, energize, motivate and guide their creator. The work of the artist,” wrote S. Arieti (1976), ”becomes adualistic. The work as a second reality takes on a life of its own and becomes independent of the artist.
This is the “Pygmalion effect”, which represents the revitalization and acquisition of independence of the work, the creation of consciousness J.W. Goethe wrote that he did not create his songs, but his songs created him.
In turn, endowing objects with their own activity, the ability to complete and develop themselves is the most important strategy and the most effective technique of artistic creation.
There is, in the words of K. Paustovsky, a “revolt of heroes”, which should not be avoided or feared. On the contrary, it is natural and testifies only to the fact that the true life broke through, filled the writer’s scheme and pushed and broke the framework of the original writer’s plan with its living pressure. About the same phenomenon spoke and I. A Goncharov: “The work, in the meantime, is continuing in my head, the characters give me no peace, pester me, and pose in scenes. I hear fragments of their conversations—and it has seemed to me, may God forgive me, that I am not imagining this, but that it is all in the air around me, and all I have to do is watch and think about it..”.
In pedagogical practice, the most talented teachers consciously give students the right to free activity, they try to enthuse and inspire them, to form the need for an independent search for truth. The same universal mechanism is used in the management process by effective leaders who see the secret of their success in the ability to arouse enthusiasm in people and a strong desire to independently perform the necessary. In turn, in inventive creativity, superpowerful and beautiful solutions imply the creation of conditions for self-solving of key contradictions of the object.

The linkage of mechanisms “self-actualization – personification” is manifested in the alternation of free self-expression and activation of objects of the external world, in making active transformative efforts and in letting the world be and follow its laws, in spontaneous activity and “active non-activity”, in self-assertion and self-denial, in conquering the environment and subordinating to it.
It is necessary to emphasize the special significance of personification, the final mechanism of the matrix, which is connected to the mechanism of idealization, which is at the opposite end of the spectrum, according to the essential evolutionary ring. In this case, the new fundamental connection “personification-idealization” reflects the super-essential connection with the Absolute through the mechanism of faith.
The creative method is realized by alternate and simultaneous activation and maintenance of balance between the poles of different-level dialectical links “idealization-problematization”, “decentralization-simplification”, “identification-meditation”, “self-actualization-personalization”.

Table 2. Activity-creative facets of genius

The universality of these mechanisms of creativity is manifested in the fact that each of them represents an explanatory matrix and dynamic trend, expresses the essential feature of genius and can generate its independent private theory.