Living Creatively in a Half Brained World
How can we define creativity?
Is it drawing and painting? Making pottery? Quilt making? Knitting? Cooking? Building a building? Designing a landscape? Decorating a cake? Sewing? Crafts? Making furniture? Writing? Composing a poem or song? Planting a garden? Creativity is all of these and none of these. These activities are simply actions that are the result of creative thinking, but none of them are creativity itself.
Creativity is not any particular activity: it is a point of view and a different way of looking at the world.
Being creative means:
- Exercising our imagination
- Encouraging the flow of ideas
- Keeping a flexible and open mind
- Recognizing options
- Learning to look at old things in new ways
- Allowing ourselves to be playful
While creative expression may be one of our most basic human needs, that side of us is fragile and easily damaged. It does not take many unkind remarks or much ridicule to destroy our self-confidence and shut us down. Too many people have suffered scorn for their attempts at originality and self-expression. Throughout life we constantly encounter people who are dedicated to cutting us down and it starts early. Fear of judgment can be crippling, and is a real hurdle that many adults have to get over if they are to successfully rediscover and express their naturally creative nature.
Society as a whole doesn’t quite know what to do with anyone who doesn’t fit the norm, and does everything possible to blend everyone into vanilla pudding. Like a jack in the box, those who dare to go against the tried and true often risk being pounded back down every time they dare to raise their heads. Many of us experienced this as children. We were not encouraged at home to express our originality or think of ourselves as creative beings because the emphasis was on practicality and doing something “useful” with both our time and ourselves.
