When I was a little girl, creativity was something that seemed to be surging through my veins. All of the time spent playing doctor for my stuffed animals, or, much to my parent’s dismay, drawing whatever I wanted on the walls with crayons- it just came naturally, as I’m sure it did for many of you. So why is it that, as we got older, much of our creativity has been pushed aside or forgotten? It seems that with age, we tend to say “oh, I’m not creative enough” to do a certain activity; however I believe that we were taught to negate our own inherent talents in order to highlight others. After all, from a young age, we are predisposed to thinking we are lesser than other children in grade school, which vastly impacts our self-esteem all the way into adulthood. With grades and reviews being the sole operator in our bustling society, you might be wondering what creativity is and how to unlock it in the first place. Well, the definition of creativity, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “the use of the imagination or original ideas”.
So basically, creativity is the use of your own inventiveness; okay, great, so what does that mean? Well, think about this: when you are problem-solving (which everyone does on a day-to-day basis), you’re using creativity in order to solve that problem. There are infinite amounts of ways to solve one single problem, and everyone most likely has an idea of how to solve it. For example, I remember in psychology class in high school my teacher made us solve a problem where there is a lit candle, a box of nails, and a hammer all on a table. You had to figure out how to stop the wax from the lit candle from getting onto the table. Several students answered by holding the candle and letting the wax drip on your hand, placing the box under the candle, or even nailing the box to the wall, and using it as a type of janky candelabra of sorts. While all of these students were technically correct, my teacher proposed that the only person that was correct was the person that said the box must be nailed to the wall because they were the most creative, and that was what the question had asked.
But, I sat there thinking for a minute in the class and wondered why my teacher had just made everyone else that answered sort of feel like an idiot when in reality, their answers were just as correct. I must admit, nailing a cardboard box to a wall and placing a burning candle in it was the most interesting (and dangerous) answer; however, I don’t believe that the other students in the classroom were any less creative than their counterparts. This is a key issue in determining why we lose our sense of creativity as we age. These students had explored their thoughts and gained traction on a new idea that was somehow different than the previous one, yet was shot down. However, the fact that they dove into their own psyche and were able to come up with something- that is what creativity is all about.
So, you might be thinking- Maranda, what does this have to do with me, you’ve been blabbing on about all of these personalized experiences, but why don’t I feel creative? Well, it turns out, this has to do a lot with our education and upbringing. When our creativity is negated and pushed aside from a young age, we tend to not want to explore anymore. Everyone is inherently creative in their own way, but it’s getting harder to convince people of that simply because of the fact that our thinking is being morphed into a competition. Creativity will be the one core human element to compete in a world that is becoming automated faster than we can think. At some point in our lives, someone has told us we aren’t creative, and we, unfortunately, believed them, thus putting ourselves in a box. Our creativity lies within us, dormant, waiting to become active.
So, what do we do to unleash this creativity once again? The answer is simple- embrace your inner child. It is a proven fact that when you expose yourself to new things and let your imagination fly, you will embrace the creative potential that has been blooming inside of you for your entire life. Remember how carefree and explorative we all were as a child? It is important to still encapsulate this and manifest this positivity in our daily lives. When doing this, we spark ignition in our brains that allow for creativity to come alive. Creativity as a whole is not about being artistic, it is about how you create art (however you may see it) in your life individually. There are no specific rules on what creativity is, or what your own art is, it’s about finding it within yourself and embracing it. In my opinion, it is about a creative outcome- something that you figured out all on your own and were brave enough to follow. That is creativity.
Creativity doesn’t have to be an outrageous or outlandish thought as we have been predisposed to thinking. Everyone is creative in their own way and it is the aspiration, the mindset, that one has that makes them creative. Moms, class clowns, babysitters, mathematicians, artists, students, and just your average Joe are all creative. It’s just about finding perspective within yourself and unleashing your creative genius.