Living Creatively in a Half Brained World
By Judith A. Albright
Are you one of those people who are convinced you don’t have a creative bone in your body? If so, this will come as a pleasant surprise: we all came into this world hard wired to be creative! How creative we actually are has less to do with talent or ability than it does, interest, choice, opportunity and circumstance.
Creative self-expression is a vital part of our psychological makeup and it is a vital part of self-actualization, which if you remember Abraham Maslow’s famous pyramid, is right at the top. While much of the lower part of the pyramid is focused on physical needs and well being, as people progress up through the various levels their needs become increasingly psychological and social. Self-actualization is the final level of psychological development, and it cannot be fully achieved until all other basic and mental needs have been met. From Maslow’s perspective, self-actualization (and its intrinsic need for creativity) is the ultimate goal and motive for life itself.
Our need for self-expression, even our craving for it, begins at birth. The human urge is nearly as strong as the need to survive and procreate our species. Even our primitive early ancestors were aware of this. For example, once they mastered the basic skill of creating cooking pots they began to decorate them. A plain cooking pot works just as well as an ornately decorated one, so what was their motivation to enhance the surface of an every day functional item? They didn’t need one—they simply were honoring their need for decoration and creative expression.
