Creativity, or originality, isn’t the privilege of working minds, even if some of us have missed riding the literary evolution wave, or scientific advance. However, the fact remains — the emergence of great machines, or the harnessing of energies, has transformed the face of our living planet, earth. It’s a revelation, all right — you’d call it creative [r]evolution, or what you may. Whatever this means, one cannot be certain yet whether scientific, or technological, transformation would help the human race much more than what we could now imagine, or cause its downfall. Yet, for better, or worse, our future is paradoxically tied to human creativity. The inference is obvious: everything we do will be determined, in large measure, by our own dreams and our struggles to make them real.
Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic change that resulted in our biological evolution, below the threshold of consciousness. It’s the opposite of cultural [r]evolution. To understand creativity is, therefore, not within the framework, or scaffold, of straight-line thinking; or, studying individuals who seem most responsible for a novel idea, or a new thing.
The creative spark is, indeed, necessary; because, without air and wood there would be no flame. But, it’d be wrong to accept the popular belief that creativity is some sort of out-and-out mental activity, or insight, that occurs inside the heads of some special people. On the contrary, it is a ‘spin-off’ that evolves by way of the ever-present interaction between each person’s thoughts and one’s socio-cultural environment.
Interestingly, creative originality is a much confused, misunderstood word. It is being used to cover far too much ground. It is best described — and, all of us would be so much the better off for it — as being three-dimensional, that could legitimately be called brilliant, personally creative and creative.
Creative persons differ from one another in a variety of ways, all right, but in one respect they seem to be unanimous: they all love what they do, but not with the hope of achieving fame, or laughing their way to the bank. They do whatever they do for the opportunity creativity provides. In the process, they also derive immense pleasure from effectively doing what they just love to do — and, love to do best.
Most of our creative fellow beings would agree that they do what they do primarily because it’s fun and/or it brings them happiness and bliss for doing things they like the most. You may now think whether or not age has got anything to do with creativity. It’s a good question. But, the fact of the matter is — age, quite simply, is no yardstick to measuring one’s affiliation with creativity.
Creativity has got something more to it than just cognitive capacities, habits, personal traits, relationships, and so on. It directly takes the domain of the word, or some creative urge, from the functional and also the psychological standpoints: of something that is released by style, or a joyful responsibility. It places as much emphasis on convergent and divergent thinking, and also the fundamental idea, or instinct, of choosing a special domain — in which we are inherently skilled — for oneself.
As a wise soul once said, “As you learn to operate within a domain, your life is certainly going to be more creative.” This may not be something that would be recorded in history books, or psychology texts, for all of us to celebrate creativity, but it’d sure be something that denotes that we all live — or, at best try to lead — a full, vibrant, and creatively fulfilling life.
