Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Any artistic people I've worked/associated with have a certain "clarity" about the world around them, that I think most people don't. Artists delve into culture and social things that are not easily recognized by people who aren't paying particular attention, I guess you could say. Not in all cases, and I think it depends on the type of creativity, but yeah... That's my simplistic way of describing it, anyway.

IMO, artistic people often see the "true nature" of things and ingest/interpret them in a way that is pretty judgement-free and quite "open". It allows them to be inspired and influenced by those things, and grow their understanding of the world around them, and thus interact with it and contribute back to it in an organic way. Again, all my subjective opinion from many years of being creative myself and collaborating with creative people. :)