Creativity is just like love…. it’s a decision. — First part.
The topic of creativity is something that rises my passion and some questions come to my mind; how can we be more creative? What do I have to do or stop doing in order to get it? Does originality exist?
It is a fact, just recently I thought that creativity was something with which you are born, that was something divine and that was based in personal thoughts.
Today I reject all those theories that have hindered me from becoming the creative person that I have always longed to be.
Today, I could mention tons of definitions of what creativity means, that it is the capacity of creating, that it is a form of original expression, bla, bla, bla. I believe that a definition cannot express the complexity of the term, so I will be writing articles trying to present in a personal way what I think about the topic.
At the moment, I will try and will make my best effort to put the subject on the table of what I consider that is not creativity. Today we will discuss points 1 and 2, in the next post we will go over the rest.
- Creativity is something innate
- Inspiration is divine
3. Creativity is 100% personal
4. Creativity is to be original
5. Creativity is limited to artists
Myth #1.- People are born and die being creative.
Talking to people and in my own experience I have noticed that a great barrier is the mythification of creativity and I will directly go over the following hypothesis; People are born being creative and die being creative. And to certain extent it is true, because all of us have the capacity of creating in any field, say science, arts, technology, etc., and whatever you please. The thing is that we look at creativity as a skill that just a few possess.
To my mind, we are all born with the capacity of creating, that’s what makes us human, creativity has differentiated us from animals throughout history, but just a few exercise it.
I should mention that in this moment of my life I am trying to write a book about innovation and creativity and I consider that beyond the topic, history, painting or a mathematic formula that you want to discuss, creativity is a commitment, is a lifestyle and at the end it is like love, it is a decision. I choose to have this life style and I choose to paint, I choose to be a mechanic, I choose to be a scientist. I chose to write a book.
When I studied elementary, 20 something years ago, I remember that one of my first friends was Cheke Terán. I always remember him with a canvas and markers. We all had the perception that Cheke was a creative and talented person. On the other hand, I was a soccer player and I wasn’t perceived as a creative kid. I didn’t know how to draw or make crafts, I remember that when they assigned crafts as homework, my models were of the worst of the classroom. Not even the help of my mother would rescue me from handing in (let’s use more neutral words) esthetically acceptable homeworks.
Cheke Terán is currently an illustrator, despite his talent for drawing he continued his life as a creative, creating stunning pieces every day.
And here I make myself another question, talent makes the creative? My answer is a resounding no! independently of his talent you choose to live a creative life or not. Cheke Terán is a talented person, but he could have taken another way and not continue with his creative life.
I figure that now you must be wondering, if I am not talented at something, how can I be a creative person in that field? Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, in his beautiful master piece Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention, mentions that most of the people that have reached important creative results, have done it without an evident exceptional talent. So that gives me hope!
Going back to my childhood, in a few years I retired from soccer ( I really intended to be a professional), I decided to study and find a good job. But, what happened to me? Today, I am writing, I didn’t have the skills of a creative person, however, today I choose and I struggle for this life.
Myth #2 ¡EUREKA! Inspiration is divine.
Another myth is that creative people are touched by some kind of divinity and that their inspiration is a never-ending source of new ideas.
As Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it must find you at work”
This thing about divine inspiration is a myth that for many years I considered a law and it paralyzed me for a long time. History writers have filled us with so many romantic anecdotes, creating geniuses, women and men that by only taking a seat would generate ideas and new concepts, that if Newton was laying falling asleep an apple would suddenly fall and create the theory of gravity. That if Archimedes was in the bathtub, he would suddenly realize that the jeweler of the king had misled them because the specific weight of the bodies should further push the water.
In fact, this story is fake, Archimedes detailed this theory with mathematical fundaments, not with a story in the bathtub. The creation of this romantic story is awarded to Marcus Vitruvius in his book The Architecture. The thing is here that Archimedes lived from 287 b.c. to 212 b.c., and Marcus Vitruvius from 80–70 b.c.-15 b.c. Therefore the tale of the bathtub is slightly feasible to be true.
Part of the history of great women and men of the humanity is told with romanticism and mysticism, lots of times in a rather exaggerated way. In real life inspiration is the capacity of creating ideas and furthermore the implementation should make us sweat. If we sit and wait, our friend inspiration will stand us up at the altar and guess what, there won’t be a party.
As Tomas Alva Edison used to say, “Geniuses are 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration”.
This story will be continued….tomorrow
Greetings!!!
p.d. Cheke Terán Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheketeran/
