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 Creativity: For Ages 1-99

To many, creativity means using your imagination to create a “thing” of an artistic nature. To many, creativity is found on a canvas, within the pages of a book, or across the keys of a piano. While that may be true, and certainly is as time passes and some select works prevail, to many, finding the time, grit, and existential strength to conjure up such a work is simply not an option. In an era defined by its fast pace, amidst fleeting feeds, 5 minute Uber rides, and one night long relationships, who has the time to write the next War & Peace? There is a rift of misunderstanding between the act of creation and the ordinary modern man, the one who works from 9 am to 5 pm every day, 5 days a week, until the age of 65, after which he tries to hold on to both his life and wife, having let go of his 2 kids long ago. But, there needn't be a rift between him and creativity. In fact, creativity is about doing meaningful and fulfilling activities, fuelled by your imagination. This goes beyond traditional creative activities, as meaning is the most personal of things, and takes on very different forms according to very different people. To some, albeit not many, you can find meaning within the columns and rows of a spreadsheet, the slides of a PowerPoint or the code inside a program. What matters is that creativity can be deployed anywhere. To the ordinary man, it can heighten a monotonous moment's work, a tedious chore, or a mundane family dinner. To the ordinary man, creativity isn’t an artistic masterpiece, it is an approach to life, and it has more than a few things going for it. 

Creative Reason(ing)s

Psycho emotional

Before diving into “profound” reasons for the ordinary man to practise creativity in his daily life, there are more surface level, but no less potent, psycho emotional advantages to recognise. Let me insert myself into this section, to drive my point across. I consider myself a busy person. Alongside my 18 credit semesters and regular class schedule, I am:

• Teaching myself about investment and financial markets

• Part of USC’s tennis club

• Running a startup 

• CFO for a student-run (so even more chaotic) organisation

• Going to all sorts of events, webinars, masterclasses, addresses, etc…

• Trying to find and maximise professional opportunities (which needs much networking)

• And of course, trying to keep a social life, regular sleep schedule, and time to myself

I am grateful for all of these (full)filling opportunities, and recognise that we all have our plates full. Nonetheless, the continuous digestion of such an elaborate meal, does come with a dose of overthought, stress, or anxiety. This is where creativity comes in; Engaging in creative activities provides an outlet for these often overwhelming feelings, and allows the ordinary man to escape his daily worries. As a student, I may sit down at my desk and draw for an hour or two at night, but to a working person, trying a new recipe for dinner will do just as much good. 

Creativity brings us much-needed peace. The value of this peace becomes clear once we acknowledge our frantic lifestyles, plagued by back-to-back meetings, 30 minute lunch breaks, or an inescapable, traffic ridden commute.

Biological

Though creativity stimulates the mind, it also exercises the body. On a similar, literal level, the brain is a muscle, and creative thinking is its workout. Amazingly, being creative will keep your mind active and extend your life. These are science’s words, not mine; researchers at Scientific American Mind say that “only creativity, not intelligence or openness”, will reduce your chances of a disease, such as dementia, and “overall mortality risk”. (Rodriguez) Earlier, I mentioned that creativity relieves stress. This also plays a role in bolstering the health of the ordinary and working, not to say stressed and neurotic, man, for life is easier navigated when its waters are calm. As Stephen Mitchell, author of The Enlightened Heart, once said, “creativity, not normality, is the paradigm of health”.

Professional

The same goes for the “working” part of the working man. With more creative pursuit comes “fewer sick days taken off from work, increased productivity because you feel well enough to focus to the best of your ability, and a general desire to do a great job”. (Tsintziras) This desire is not unreasonable, for creativity leads to new and innovative ideas that can help workers do a job in as great a manner as they wish. Many firms recognise the power of creativity in the workplace, and so have taken steps to encourage “intrapreneurship”. At Google, for example, employees are given 20% of their work hours for personal creative projects. In 2004, one such employee took that chance and created Gmail, and the rest is history. Thus, on the level of the individual, creative thinking can help him stand out in his career, for his newfound health, productivity, and ideas, whereas on the level of the collective, creative thinking can lead to revolutionary progress.

Existential

• While many of us like, even need, to relax through mindless consumption (of food, substances, or entertainment), replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms, or habits, with creative ones can be a life changing. “If you can spend your weekends writing that novel you’ve always dreamed of writing, for instance, you will feel satisfied and happy”. Using the example of JK Rowling, who was working as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for Harry Potter while on a delayed train. The 7-year period that followed saw the death of her mother, divorce, and relative poverty, but the creative act, writing, saved her life by giving her meaning.

• Creativity allows individuals to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a unique way. Famed psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who first identified the mental state of flow, wrote the book “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.” He describes creativity as, “a central source of meaning in our lives … most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity … [and] when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.”

• Use an example of my own experience finding meaning in creativity

Creativity relieves not only the mind, and body, but also the soul. TBD

Counter Arguments

I would gladly offer counterarguments to what has been an ode to creativity, for the sake of balance, reason, and objectivity. However, I am simply unable to conjure up any meaningful downsides to creativity. One might argue that risk taking is inherent to creative thinking, which makes real the prospect of uncertainty, ridicule, and failure, or that creativity, while requiring a significant investment of time and resources, is very demanding, mentally, intellectually, or emotionally. However, TBD

Conclusion

TBD

Works Cited

Rodriguez, Tori. (2012). Open Mind, Longer Life. Scientific American Mind. 23. 18-18. 10.1038/scientificamericanmind0912-18b. 

Tsintziras, Aya. “5 Reasons Why Being Creative Will Help You at Work.” Www.careeraddict.com, 15 July 2015, www.careeraddict.com/5-reasons-why-being-creative-will-help-you-at-work.