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- P e r s o n a l _ C r e a t i v i t y -
ByJoyce Wycoff
It may surprise you now, but the answer is "yes!"
(Hang on again for the reason.)
Look around you and identify the most joyful people you know ... the people who radiate life and goodwill. Chances are excellent that you'll find them expressing themselves in significant ways.
You'll find:
- a teacher connecting with students in a powerful, transforming way
- an entrepreneur working long hours building a business
- a dancer learning a complicated routine
- a rock climber inching up a challenging crevass
- a parent planning a birthday party
- a lawyer researching an obscure case
- a jazz pianist composing
- a cook experimenting with an unusual seasoning
- a fisherman trying to outsmart a wily trout
- a designer sketching a fashion layout
- a minister writing a sermon
- a poet capturing a metaphor
- an engineer tinkering with a problematic device
- a twelve-year-old kid "playing" endlessly with graphics software
What all these folks have in common is that they're learning, exploring, breaking through barriers, generating ideas, rejecting ideas, solving problems, identifying opportunities, making judgments, receiving input from others and their senses, experimenting, trying, failing, trying again. In other words, they're creating ... creating works of art, experiences, inventions, pictures, words, relationships, music, recipes, fun, and self-fulfillment.
Every one of them is exercising creativity, because that's what we do. It comes with the territory of being a human being. We create. We are creative beings. We create because it helps us survive and it feels good ... it brings us joy.
When we don't create, when we don't learn and grow, it brings us pain. It deadens us. When this innate urge to create is thwarted or stifled, we turn to unhealthy substitutes such as drugs, alcohol, crime, violence, etc. to lessen the pain.
So the answer to the question of "Are you creative?" is an overwhelming "yes!" All of us have the need to create and it has nothing to do with whether or not someone else labels us "creative." To eliminate part of the confusion about creativity, perhaps we should use "Creativity" (big-C) to mean the kind of creativity that is recognized by a group of judges and "creativity" (small-c) to mean the innate drive each of us have to express ourselves.
Our focus should be on small-c creativity because that's all we can control ... and that's where the fun is. As we learn more and more ways to generate ideas and express our unique combination of talents, skills and life experiences, we might earn a big-C Creativity label but that is a side-effect, a cherry on top of the life-sundae ... nice, but not the main event.
Joyce Wycoff, Executive Director of the Innovation Network can be reached at 805-965-8477 or staff@thinksmart.com