I Will Not Die

 Email this article to a friend

What is creativity?

Creativity is defined many ways by many people. We each probably have our own understanding of what creativity is. Many people associate it with art, or music or other “right brain” or non-analytical activities, but that’s not always the case. Creativity is as much a part of almost any activity as it is part of the arts. Creativity finds its way into our jobs, our homes, our schools, and even our relationships just as often, if not much more often, than it finds its way onto the end of a paintbrush or pen. I’m going to use the following dictionary definition of creativity because it covers the breadth of what creativity can be at its best. This definition will also serve as a guide for the rest of the article.

“the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.;” (Dictionary.com)

Creativity is clearly tainted with newness. You can even use the above definition to create a private mantra:

“…transcend old patterns, create new methods…”

Why would you want to make personal mantras? Because they really work.

Before we can fully know the importance of what aiming to be creative can be, we have to ask…

Why is creativity necessary?

In truth, it’s not actually necessary at all. That’s the problem. Using old patterns to implement old methods is commonplace. I’d even venture to say that it’s the one thing human beings do best. We’re completely wired for it. We look at our environment and analyze it. We then use what we just learned and replicate. It’s just a matter of input versus output, much like a math function. What we output is almost always dependent upon what we input. In our world then, what we each do naturally, is act almost just like what we see. We are fully effective mimes.

Creativity becomes necessary when miming just isn’t good enough, and most of the time when you’re trying to achieve something, miming falls short and here’s why:

1. The world is one big equilibrium.
2. Because of #1, the slot you want to fill has already been filled.

Let’s take your job. You want a promotion, but have to wait for an open position to become available before you can get your promotion. The mimic version: do the best job you can, impress your boss, be a good little worker bee. Once a position becomes available, apply for it and try to demonstrate why you should get the position. Why is this the mimic version? It’s the mimic version because when we look around us to see how other people got promotions, this is the way they got them. A position became available, and the person applied for it and got it. But because this is the mimic version, everyone is doing it. Suddenly it becomes much harder to achieve it. Because everyone is trying the same thing, you might have five people all vying for the same promotion and all trying the same path to get there. One creative version: try to make your own promotion. Try to explain to your employer some of your skills that are outside of the scope of a position you might want and see if they can invent a completely new position that includes those additional skills. No more competition. No equilibrium. New slot is available.

Let’s take your education. Let’s say you want more time to study, but between your class load and a part-time job, you’re completely taxed. The mimic version: cut out some of your other activities to free up more time, or sleep less and study haphazardly into the dawn. Where did we get this idea? We looked around us and examine what other people do to find more time to study. We hear it all the time, “I’m tired because I stayed up all night to study,” or, “Sorry, I can’t go because I have a test to study for…maybe next week, OK?” One creative version: implement a temporary polyphasic sleep cycle. Take short naps followed by intense periods of study, followed by more short naps. Sleeping between study sessions helps you remember much more effectively, so you study better, in less time, and you can learn more all at the same time.

Just so you know, I’ve done both of the above. In the job story above, I needed a promotion, but my predicament was much worse than the scenario I used. In my real-life version there were no promotions available presently and none in the foreseeable future. I was screwed. However, after I approached my boss with my idea, he loved it, saw the value in it, and I got a promotion, increased status, and and a thirty-five percent raise. With the studying example, I found using that method to be highly effective. While a lot of people I knew complained about not having enough time, I was able to study just as much, more effectively, while still being able to enjoy other activities.

But before we can really put this into practice, we have to know…

How creativity works

I might be one of the most creative people you will ever meet. Lots of people might assume that the origins of my creativity are obvious after reading my autobiography. I’ve led a very strange life, very unordinary, so it could be a big factor. In other words, using our opening definition, the patterns I use are already (even before any modification) transcended to a degree when compared to traditional patterns. My “default” starting point might be creative to begin with. Then when I actually try to be creative, sometimes what I come up with is even more transcended.

So how does creativity work? Creativity is essentially a spontaneous event. It’s like an epiphany. That said however, it’s not always an accident. In fact, it might never be an accident. Or it might be an accident so infrequently that we might as well just say it never is. Why is this important? It’s important because when people have problems they need solutions to, they often sit more or less idle, waiting for a creative solution to come to them, to fall out of the sky. And even in those cases where they feel like an answer did fall from the sky, we cannot underestimate the fact that they were sitting there waiting for it. Maybe it wasn’t an accident after all.

A spontaneous, creative act or idea is the result of the inadequacy that defines a preexisting act or idea. If the answers that are already out there are completely sufficient, then there’s no need to come up with new ones. One reason why I personally believe people are less creative than they could be is because after looking at the currently available solutions, they end up picking one they think is suitable and they might tell themselves, because it’s been done before by someone else, that it’s a sufficient solution to the problem they are currently facing.

However, once the available solutions are deemed inadequate, that’s when the real fun begins. That’s when we stare off into the abyss. That’s when we abandon all the old roads in search of new ones. But there will never be a roadmap. If there was a roadmap, then it only means we’re replicating something done before us. Creativity, or creative solutions to problems occur with very little aid.

Trying to actively be creative is not always very easy because each new creative act is unique. That said though, we still must be sober when we try to figure out…

How to actively spawn creativity

There are actually lots of ways to encourage spontaneous, creative acts.

1. Allow yourself ample time to think. Creative acts won’t usually appear while in the midst of actively doing a regular task.
2. Get a new set of four walls. Go for a walk, go to a park, or go sit somewhere quietly at a cafe. If you stare at the same four walls all the time, you’ll probably keep coming up with the same four ideas all the time.
3. Abandon the old roads. Don’t be afraid to be critical of the other, previously trafficked solutions. I like to write down the pros and cons of other ideas. I like to clearly spell out why they worked before, for others, and why they might not work for me.
4. Let yourself be open to seemingly absurd ideas. Lots of “creative” ideas are nonsensical. Or they’re just bad ideas completely. But even so, don’t dismiss them altogether. Some of my own greatest creative ideas are derivatives of really bad ones.
5. Identify yourself as a creative person. Telling yourself you are creative will encourage your mind to live up to the standard you set for it.
6. Surround yourself with people who appreciate creative notions. If your friends laugh off every idea you have, go find new ones or go find some solitude. Being surrounded by people who immediately discourage new roads will suffocate you.

The biggest problem with creativity

The biggest problem with creativity is failure. Creative acts are acts never tried before, and they stand to fail at a rate many times greater than almost any other act. This is devastating for many people. No one likes to fail. We hate it so much that after only a few times, we’re apt to give up altogether. At the same time though, the rewards will always be significantly higher than the rewards we might reap from succeeding using the old patterns. More failure is the price creative people must pay for the greater success that comes from their creations. If you can stomach many losses in search of great gains, you’ll be fine.

A summary

If nothing else, try to keep in mind the following:

Creative acts are new solutions to old problems. They become necessary when old solutions to old problems are inadequate. They are often extremely spontaneous. They can be encouraged by following a few simple lifestyle habits. They are often accompanied with failure. In the end, the failures are just small pieces of the much greater successes, and so, should be understood and dealt with and accepted.

If you enjoyed this, you can join the rss feed and be updated about new material. If you don't know what rss feeds are, this article explains them.

Dereck :: Jul.20.2008 :: Growth, Tips :: 25 Comments »

Trackback this post | Feed on Comments to this post