Creativity, Attack!

"A ship in the harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for." - John A. Shedd

Creativity is usually one of the criteria being considered when judging poster-making contests, dance competitions and other events that involve the use of artistic skills. Hence, many individuals associate creativity with the field of arts alone. They think that one can only be creative when painting, drawing, designing gowns, performing onstage, shooting a film and whatnot. However, creativity is not limited to these activities. Whether you are an author, a scientist, a musician or simply a student, you can be creative.

Restructuring patterns in the mind is what creativity is all about. Instead of sticking with the traditional way of doing things, you must be able to play with your imagination and thoughts in order to come up with something new, fresh and interesting. This may not be an easy task because developing new ideas really needs your time and effort. How can you stir away from the cliché plots of novels? How can you make an invention more efficient? Creativity, therefore, implies challenging yourself. Now, this force to create is actually complemented by another force which is already built in the human system—the force of entropy.

Entropy gives us pleasure when we are comfortable or relaxed. It includes the urge to curl up on the sofa and to put on headphones and just listen to music. Creativity and entropy, then, are two opposite sets of instructions since creativity is to challenges as entropy is to relaxation. If this is so, how can the two complement each other? Creativity requires thinking and thinking requires expending energy. Without entropy, we would easily exhaust ourselves. Thus, for every person, the force of creativity and entropy must be balanced. Most people, though, enjoy relaxation more than the challenge.

Another point about creative people is that they perform active entertainment. Discovering or designing something new brings them pleasure and so by thinking out of the box, they do active entertainment—they themselves are finding different ways to enjoy as opposed to passive entertainment where an individual only relies on others to make himself/herself happy. This enjoyable experience of a creative person is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the “flow”. What else do you think could possibly happen during a flow?

There are actually elements of flow that creative people often mention, according to Csikszentmihalyi. These include: a) there are clear goals every step of the way b) there is immediate feedback to one’s actions c) there is a balance between challenges and skills d) action and awareness are merged e) distractions are excluded from consciousness f) there is no worry of failure g) self-consciousness disappears h) the sense of time becomes distorted i) the activity becomes and end in itself. All of these reflect the qualities of creative people. They all love what they do and so the task becomes almost effortless. They prefer to challenge themselves and this leaves them highly focused.

Imagine what it’s like if there were no creative people. The world would certainly become boring since all the technological equipment that we’re enjoying today are products of creativity. The poems, stories and songs composed before would still be the ones we’d be using today. There won’t be any change in fashion. Most importantly, there would be no progress in thought. The beliefs and ideas of our ancestors about themselves and their environment would just be passed on to us. As an individual, we, too, don’t have a chance to grow. We can’t expand our skills, values and way of thinking. Creativity, therefore, is essential for the personal and cultural growth.

Valuable things do result from the work of creative individuals and I believe that everyone is capable of doing so. We should just at least try to get out of our comfort zone and take on challenges. Let’s push ourselves to become better.