The cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman says there’s research that seems to indicate that social rejection fuels creativity.

I’ve always thought so. (Also that it works the other way too. Dreamy imaginative kids probably aren’t great at social skills, so they get social rejection, so they do even more fantasizing and pretending and nerding out. Loop loopy loop.)

By definition, creative solutions are unusual, involving the recombination of ideas. Unusual, divergent ideas and access to distant, remote associations are hallmarks of creative thinking. Perhaps those who like to distance themselves from others are more likely to also recruit associations from unusual places and think beyond conventional ideas.

Plus they have more time alone, plus they have brain space freed … Read the rest

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