This is a universal characteristic of all the people studied or observed. There is no exception. Each one shows in one way or another a special kind of creativeness or originality or inventiveness which has certain peculiar characteristics. These special characteristics can be understood more fully in the light of discussion later in this paper. For one thing, it is different from "special-talent creativeness" of the Mozart type. We may as well face the fact that the so-called "geniuses" display ability which we do not understand. All we can say of them is that they seem to be specially endowed with a drive and a capacity which may have rather little relationship to the rest of the personality and with which, from all evidence, the individuals seem to be born. Such talent we have no concern with here, since it doesn't rest upon psychic health or basic satisfaction. The creativeness of the self-actualized man seems rather to be akin to the naive and universal creativeness of unspoiled children. It seems to be more a fundamental characteristic of common human nature-a potentiality given to all human beings at birth. Most human beings lose this as they become acculturated, but some few individuals seem either to retain this fresh and naive direct way of looking at life or, else, if they have lost it, as most people do, to recover it later in life.

This creativeness appears in some of our subjects not in the usual forms of writing books, composing music, or producing artistic objects, but rather may be much more humble. It is as if this special type of creativeness, being an expression of healthy personality, is projected out upon the world or touches whatever activity the person is engaged in. In this sense there can be creative shoemakers or carpenters or clerks. Whatever one does can be done with a certain attitude, a certain spirit which arises out of the nature of the character of the person performing the act. One can even see creatively, as the child does.

This quality is differentiated out here for the sake of discussion, as if it were something separate from the characteristics which precede it and follow it; but this is not actually the case. Perhaps when we speak of creativeness here we are simply describing from another point of view, namely, from the point of view of consequences, what we have described above as a greater freshness, penetration, and efficiency of perception. These people seem to see the true and the real more easily. It is because of this that they seem to other more limited men creative.

Furthermore, as we have seen, these individuals are less inhibited, less constricted, less bound, in a word, less acculturated. In more positive terms, they are more spontaneous, more natural, "more human." This too would have as one of its consequences what would seem to other people to be creativeness. If we assume, as we may from our study of children, that all people were once spontaneous, and, perhaps in their deepest roots, still are, but that these people have in addition to their deep spontaneity a superficial but powerful set of inhibitions, then this spontaneity must be checked so as not to appear very often. If there were no choking-off forces, then we might expect that every human being would show this special type of creativeness.