This is getting off-topic, but I’m finding it interesting (sorry srp2752).
What you’ve written had not occurred to me, but I’m largely agreeing (I think). Anyway, it’s triggered some random thoughts that might or might not be in alignment.
I agree that creativity is largely a solitary activity. I’ve yet to participate in a brainstorming session where anything more than mediocrity was achieved. More often than not, they’re exercises in finding a lowest-common-denominator.
There have been a few instances in my life (literally no more than a few) where the reciprocal nature of a partnership triggered something better than either one of us could have developed on our own. I’m not talking about, for example, a situation where a talented team brings diverse skills to the table — those happen all the time. I’m talking, instead, about two people’s ideas playing off each other in ways that result in a significant joint creative insight or achievement.
I can think of a downside to the notion that creative ideas need to develop and mature before being shared with others. I’m tentatively agreeing with this usually being the case, but I’ve found that fully developed original ideas are resisted by most people.
Unless others have a stake in the success of a new idea and feel as though they’re a part of it, they’re cautious to the point of resisting anything unanticipated or perceived as being a threat to their comfort zones.
People, I’ve found, will typically accept a next logical step, but when the idea skips a few steps — even when it’s totally right and, especially, when it poses a paradigm shift in thought —it’s a very difficult thing to sell without, first, having built a coalition of support by involving others in its development.
Have you ever read Ayn Rand’s, The Fountainhead?