“In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.” - Rollo May

Very frequently I want to be in a very quiet place. Don't like noises and getting disturbed. My thought process needs constant inputs and outputs only from my inner self and requires complete silence from outside. If somebody or something tries to distract me I get annoyed because my thought processes get interrupted and it takes some time for them to get back on the track again.  Yes, when I am thinking I have to concentrate completely on my work. Very often I prefer to be left alone. I don't favour frequent social interactions. I want to be away from everybody around! Is something wrong with me?

'No, not at all', says science! 'You are a perfect person for creativity - both scientific as well as artistic'! say research results published in the journal Neuropsychologia. [Darya L. Zabelina et al, Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: Selective versus ...]

The No. 1 Creativity Habit: In a word: solitude. (1)

Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus.

Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions to a single problem. Convergent thinking uses a limited, rule-based, predetermined route. Even if you follow rules like in science, you can get creative with a vast knowledge base and different ways of using those rules and knowledge. There is no limit to divergent thinking.

Behavioral studies have found that more creative people may have leaky sensory filters. That means the involuntary neurological process that ordinarily filters out irrelevant stimuli are not as fully engaged.

To test that idea, researchers asked volunteers to fill out a creative achievement questionnaire and take a test to assess creative cognition. Then, their brain activity was monitored while they listened to closely separated click sounds.  

A typical brain responds to the first click a lot stronger than the second, identical click. It’s as if the brain acknowledges it processed something novel and doesn’t need to process the second click to the same extent. But for creative brains—the situation can be different!

Very creative people process the second click to the same degree so they don’t censor out information that is repetitive or irrelevant in some sense. What’s interesting is that it happens 50 milliseconds after stimulus onset. With behavioral studies it’s impossible to sort of know exactly when this…happens. And with neurophysiology  they are able to see that only 50 milliseconds after…the clicks in their study were presented. More creative people were less likely to filter out the noise. So 50 milliseconds, you’re not able to decide whether…to process something or not, it’s sort of an automatic response.

For creative minds each and every thing that comes their way is important and should be processed in equal ways and all points should be noted with highest priority.

If this kind of hyper-alert condition sounds familiar, you are highly creative! Mozart, Kafka, Darwin, Chekhov, Tesla, and Proust were reported to avoid distractions while working because they were easily distracted. If noise derails your thought, the problem might be that you may have a highly creative brain that's less able to filter out seemingly unimportant events.

According to Tesla: “The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”

Goethe: “One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”

Picasso: “Without great solitude no serious work is possible."

Carl Sandburg: “One of the greatest necessities is to discover creative solitude.”

Thomas Mann: “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous — to poetry.”

“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.”~Lou Dorfsman

So almost all creative people either in science or art  prefer solitude and agree with other creative people.

And I am alright. No need to worry! How comforting!

Reasonable-- and meaningful-- set of four factors that govern solitude according to experts:

1. Preference for solitude 

    Prefer to be left alone, want to be left alone, seek quiet, don't like crowded events

2. Enjoyment of solitude

     Enjoy spending time by oneself, amuse oneself easily

3. Introspection

     Spend time reflecting on things, enjoy contemplation, like to ponder over things

4. Nonconformity

     Have a point of view all one's own, go one's own way, live in a world of one's own, do things at   one's own pace.

                                                                              ***************

Important features of this research...

Creative achievement is associated with “leaky” sensory gating, as assessed by the P50 ERP. 

Divergent thinking is associated with selective sensory gating, as assessed by the P50 ERP•

Divergent thinking and creative achievement have different neural mechanisms of sensory gating.•

The effects are specific to P50 – there are no associations between creativity and N100 or P200.

Creativity has previously been linked with atypical attention, but it is not clear what aspects of attention, or what types of creativity are associated. Scientists investigated specific neural markers of a very early form of attention, namely sensory gating, indexed by the P50 ERP, and how it relates to two measures of creativity: divergent thinking and real-world creative achievement. Data from 84 participants revealed that divergent thinking (assessed with the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking) was associated with selective sensory gating, whereas real-world creative achievement was associated with “leaky” sensory gating, both in zero-order correlations and when controlling for academic test scores in a regression. Thus both creativity measures related to sensory gating, but in opposite directions. Additionally, divergent thinking and real-world creative achievement did not interact in predicting P50 sensory gating, suggesting that these two creativity measures orthogonally relate to P50 sensory gating. Finally, the ERP effect was specific to the P50 – neither divergent thinking nor creative achievement were related to later components, such as the N100 and P200. Overall results suggest that leaky sensory gating may help people integrate ideas that are outside of focus of attention, leading to creativity in the real world; whereas divergent thinking, measured by divergent thinking tests which emphasize numerous responses within a limited time, may require selective sensory processing more than previously thought.

Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: Selective versus leaky sensory gating in divergent thinkers and creative achievers

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839321500041X

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Intellectuals, it seems, thinking at very higher and faster rate than others,  find it too difficult to be able to converse. Finding a person with similar qualities could pose some difficulties. Probably 80% of general population would not provide sufficient intellectual stimulation or would not have the kind of interests that would allow one to want to spend some time with them.

There is what has been described as an intellectual “zone of tolerance” (well known author, Jensen, 2004, ref 2). This is a zone of 20 IQ points, plus or minus, of one’s own level. Within this zone the people can relate in terms of speed of thought, analysis and interests. Dealing with someone outside this zone, one will feel frustrated and impatient as the other person is simply incapable of keeping up with their thought processes.

When confronted with dealing with someone much lower, an extremely intelligent person might just not want to talk because they know both will end up feeling frustrated and annoyed. It’s easier and better to say nothing. This is part of the reason why many highly intelligent people get so frustrated easily, can be more prone to depression (there’s simply no-one around them they can relate to) and/or are seen as aloof and arrogant due to their seeming indifference and disinterest. 

This is the reason why they cannot be in good relationships too.

So when you find a person who doesn't want to mingle with people and want to be left alone...try to understand them in this way...

Intelligent  people write and read more than they speak.

They are too busy thinking to talk.

They have differently wired brains because they take time to reflect.

They just value learning over gossip and loose talk.

They choose their words wisely and are slow to react or give replies.

They don’t blabber; they listen and seek more information.

They believe in 'Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference'.

And also, 'Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.' "Talk doesn’t cook rice; only Action creates Results".

They appreciate that life is defined by what you do and what you don’t do.

“Dumb people talk about people; Average people talk about events; Intelligent people think about ideas.”

References:

1. http://zenhabits.net/creative-habit/

2. https://books.google.co.in/books?id=NQrtt-peg5AC&pg=PA191&l...(Jensen,+2004).&source=bl&ots=ShRrAUshVr&sig=9Bx2WW45RbNZcBFbe2B2SrYZQew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6h8uRo-DNAhULQI8KHZG3Dz4Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Czone%20of%20tolerance%E2%80%9D%20(Jensen%2C%202004).&f=false