Geography: It matters more to the creative process than one may think

Oftentimes, where I work is just as important as what I am working on. I could be writing a paper on an interest of mine, but if I am in the backseat of a car racing down Interstate 95, then it doesn’t matter how much I enjoy the subject, I won’t be writing my best material. We are creatures easily influenced by our environment, more so than we like to think.

For instance, seasonal affective disorder (with the appropriate acronym SAD) is most common in the cold months of winter, largely due to the lack of natural sunlight and overall stress of the temperature. There are other possible explanations of being down in the December dumps, but the main idea is that the physical environment can (and does) play a significant role in our mood. Weather might have the most obvious connection, but it is not the only environmental factor influencing our psyche.

Originally from dreary England, Alex Turner, musician and songwriter, moved to Brooklyn, New York, several years ago, and in an interview with The New York Times, discussed the surprising effects it had on his writing.

“Someone put it to me that New York is a good place to write, because of the grid,” Turner said. “It’s pretty organized, you kind of know where you are on the map, more so than some other places. That’s an interesting idea, I thought — you know where you are, and that centers you.”

Looking at a transit map of New York City is an oddly satisfying experience. The land masses might be oddly shaped, but the roads align perfectly, laying over the land like a symmetrical blanket. It’s as if someone gently laid a huge piece of graph paper over the city, and the roads and neighborhoods were carefully planned to strictly adhere to the lines, creating only perfect right angles at every intersection.

The result of living in such a place is that there is no confusion in figuring out where you are. Your physical location is mostly numbers, just a dot on a massive grid. But what does this have to do with writing?

When writing in such a location, you do not have to spend time thinking or worrying about location; the city keeps you in place and locks you into your little block. You are certainly not trapped. Your mind kind of just accepts it, and you soon realize just how small and insignificant you are.

Writers are often preoccupied with the concept of personal identity, knowing their true self and expressing that. Knowing where they are checks off one of the boxes and allows them to delve deeper into the other facets of identity. A city like New York is incessantly beaming with energy, packed with millions of determined doers. The city is both worldly and an isolated bubble of its own, and I believe it thrives as a city of creativity because artists can go there and settle into the grid, among the masses, and truly focus on themselves.

There is a book by Eric Weiner called “The Geography of Genius,” which discusses the relationship between creativity and the physical environment. One major point discussed was how nearly all the greatest minds and centers of creativity in history have been found in bustling cities — not even the prettiest ones at that. Nothing against places like Bora Bora and Honolulu, but the book argues that living in a large, not-exactly comfortable city such as New York is the prime environment for working creatively. The city life presents challenges, fosters creativity, rewards innovation and writers reap the benefits of intense competition in every aspect of life.

Some of the book’s ideas might seem like reaches, but I think the idea is both fascinating and has some truth to it. It is often said that humans are creatures of habit, but as it turns out, habitat can significantly affect our work as well.

Andrew Hall is a UF management junior. His column appears on Fridays.