“How do you define Creativity?”
If we are to have any power at all over the quality of our lives, this is a question we all must answer for ourselves. How do we define creativity? And what place does it have in our lives?
Unless we grew up training for a career in the Arts, or in a tribal culture where creativity is practiced as a way of life, most of us have learned more about why we aren’t creative than why we are. I think it’s about time we changed that.
My own experience of creativity was given to me first in childhood through lessons in everything from tap dancing to singing to piano. The parochial school I grew up in was highly academic fare, with no Arts at all on the menu; so my parents offered me side dishes of creative expression between meals. The lessons revealed talent in certain areas (and not in others), and gave me opportunities (when judgment was in check) to explore the space I take up in the world. But it was in my time alone — with a pen, a page and a guitar — when I began to experience the natural flow of creative energy through me. That direct current of creative energy was exhilarating, and it nourished me.
Many of the people who come to my talks or participate in my groups, come with assumptions about what creativity is and what it isn’t. Either you are or you aren’t. Creativity is this, and not that. I have time to be creative, or I don’t. Those assumptions must be overcome before we can re-empower ourselves as the natural creators that we all are, before we can work with our circumstances as the raw materials with which to create our lives.
I’m intrigued with these assumptions. Were we born with them? Or did we learn them along the way? Are they true? Do they serve us? Or, if we could see them, could we choose to live a different way? I think we could.
So, I’ve decided to launch a short survey, to find out what assumptions about creativity we are living from. It might be interesting to find out for yourself. Eight questions. Ten minutes max. So, please join in. Forward this post to your friends, so they can participate as well. And watch for the results in a future edition of the Wheel of Creativity Email Newsletter. (If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here).
Click here to take the survey.
And go ahead and post your comments here if you’d like to share your definition. Get creative!
