The Importance of Having a Common Thread

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There are instances where people are so narrowly focused that nothing creative can come out of their work because they can’t see what’s happening in the periphery.

There are other situations where people become so stretched among so many interests that they lose their thread and produce only superficial and scattered work.

But then there’s the sweet spot of becoming a true pioneer, when the range is ample but there’s a common theme that connects it all.

Storytelling was the thread that connected Gordon Parks’s many interests and talents; the one that supported his vast range.

A high school dropout, who in 1938 at the age of 26 bought his first camera, Parks became one of the 20th century masters of photography, journalism, film and writing.

It all started with the click of that camera he got for seven dollars, being completely self-taught and letting the inspiration of what he saw in magazines, guided by his intuition, become the compass in developing his incipient new career.

Parks was flexible, curious, and motivated by a desire to achieve. He also saw an opportunity to tell as many stories as he could possibly seize.

Jobs in the government allowed him to capture the life of African Americans in diverse parts of the country. And accepting jobs with LIFE and Vogue Magazine opened the range of being able to tell a fashion story or take historical snaps of some of the most important artists in the world, like Alexander Calder and Helen Frankenthaler.

Here’s the thing about Parks: that motivation to achieve was always translated into excellent work. The kind of work that gets noticed. So the editors at LIFE asked him to also write articles that accompanied his images, which he did, winning multiple awards.

But the range expanded, because he never thought that he couldn’t, and in the 1960s he began to write memoirs, novels, poems and screenplays. The increase in his range allowed Parks to adapt his novel “The Learning Tree” into a full feature film, making him the first Black artist to produce and direct a major Hollywood film in 1969.

While he was ample with his interests and pursued projects that stretched him, it was always the desire to tell a story that kept Parks relevant: “I think we should have some sort of thing that will keep the record straight…” he said about his desire to document life around him. That focus kept him on track.

Authenticity, intrinsic motivation, taking chances, and a willingness to learn and to make mistakes, are some of the characteristics that the most creative people possess.

Donald W. Mackinnon, one of the pioneer researchers of the science and psychology of creativity, found that the most creative people are those who are self-aware and open to expressing a wide range of interests.

In his book “Range”, journalist David Epstein argues that the most effective path to success in any domain is to be a generalist who juggles many interests, rather than focusing on one. He claims that generalists are also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections that their more specialized peers can’t see.

If you can think about that one single thing that serves as a commonality and connects all your interests, you can go as far as wide as you’d envision. The boundaries are only those that you impose to yourself.

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