Redefining Creativity
Inspiration is for Artists... Right?
In case you have not figured it out by now, I like talking about creativity and inspiration. Depending on who I am talking to, I get mixed responses to this topic. If I am talking to someone like my cousin, the very talented painter Travis Rueckert, we can spin into trading stories of how we were inspired by a show we watched or a post we saw on Instagram or something one of our children said. If I mention the same topic to his brother, Golden, I am met with a line like, “That’s great for you, but I don’t have a creative bone in my body!”
I was reading a comment I got on my last post (the one where I talked about Inspiration Overload) from Jody Gates. Not only did Jody refer to unfinished projects as carcasses (I wish I had used that term), but he also confessed that his unfinished projects were not “artistic projects,” but he still understood where I was coming from. Between my cousin and Jody I got to thinking… and when I am thinking, I start asking myself questions. I asked, is inspiration only for artistic types?
Redefining Creativity
Ok, so for me, creativity is taking an idea or an image I have inside my head and doing something to create a version of that thought in the real world. I define creativity for myself as making something or painting something or designing a solution to a problem that does not yet exist. In my mind, creativity, the thing that needs to be fueled by inspiration, is the creating of a physical object that did not exist before.
This sounds good, but I think it is a flawed definition of creativity.
I am going to level with you all about something… I hate spreadsheets. I HATE them. For me they are just a complicated, rigid way to convey information. I have tried many times in the past to use spreadsheets to organize my thoughts, or generate a list of something and ended up with a sad excuse that is little more than a few fields and maybe a numeric total or something. I am not good at creating spreadsheets and I know it. Having said all that, I have spent time in spreadsheets created by someone who knows what they are doing and have to say, I have seen spreadsheets that sing. In the hands of an Excel Aficionado, a spreadsheet can do your work for you and make it (almost) enjoyable to create an expense report.
Do I believe that the ability to make a user-friendly, super smart spreadsheet is creativity? ABSOLUTELY! Not only am I impressed by the abilities of those who can do that sort of thing, but I also believe that it fits into my previous definition of creativity! Someone out there can identify a problem in their world and, drawing upon their experience with spreadsheets, create something new that solves their problem. Yeah, they do not end up with something that they can frame and hang in their living room, but they did just take something that was in their head and turned it into reality. When you think about it that way, maybe we SHOULD be framing spreadsheets…
Going back to my cousin, Golden (the guy with a creative bone deficit… I mean, really, how creative are bones, anyway?). Yeah, he’s not one to draw, paint or sculpt, but the guys has run a successful company for more than a decade and is in the process of starting a brand new one! I look at this and say, “I could never do that!"
The “New” Creative
So, here’s how I am going to look at it. What if I was all able to look at what I do and see the creative aspects of my endeavors? Or even better, what if I acknowledged how others around me create things that I can not and gave credit for creativity outside of my own own artistic pursuits?
If I head back to the cliched solution of looking up “creativity” in the dictionary I get this:
“Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination”
-The Dictionary
Sooo… It seems like any time we come up with a solution to an issue, fill a need, or make a thing and we don’t just follow the existing rules perfectly, we are being creative? That means creatives are pretty broad group of people… I would go so far as to say, that includes… everyone?
Now, I am not trying to sell short those of us who identify as “artistic creatives,” we definitely need to keep our inspiration train rolling. We should be looking for inspiration wherever we can find it and making the most of inspired moments! Maybe there is room for the rest… the not-so-artistic, the mathematically inclined, and the AI dependent to talk about inspiration. Maybe being inspired is something that transcends natural artistic ability or schooling. Maybe inspiration is something that every single human needs and can use daily! Maybe inspiration is like… human fuel?
Maybe I am just trying to be all-inclusive, or maybe I am looking for a way to understand and appreciate talents that I do not have. Or maybe I am really smart and insightful and “creativity” is just a part of “being human.”
Hi Aaron. I agree with you that creatives can pretty much be everyone. I think it's our trained social methodology that sets up the parameters of how we view people and in which "box" we place them mentally. It is a pretty cool notion if we could engage people with the thought of "what is your creative spark" when getting to know someone. Perhaps it can lead to a better connection and less categorization. Thanks for the article and keep them coming! Kumbaya, dude.