Pages

Friday, April 8, 2016

What Is Creativity?

In a previous post I wrote about motivation and inspiration. While exploring what it meant to become motivated and inspired, I came across the word creativity. If you haven't read my post about Motivation and Inspiration, it's worth a read. Every writer battles with creativity problems, writers block, whichever you prefer. I touch on this and many other ideas. In my post, I also suggested a simple trick to solving these problems. 

While exploring these problems, something in the definition of inspiration spoke to me. Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially something creative. When I define a word, I underline any other word in that definition that I don't know the true meaning of, or a word that makes me wonder. I made a note to come back to this word, because a question came to me; 'What does it mean to be creative?' 

Sure, as writers we are creative everyday. Well, we try to be creative every single day. Some days it's difficult and others it comes naturally. But how many of us creative minds actually know what it means? As writers, we represent a a very creative group. I always heard when I was younger, 'It's just a book. Just sit down and write it.' Some days it was just a book. It was that easy, but other days it was terribly difficult, for a whole host of reasons. I wondered what it really meant to be creative. What was the process of creativity, what was it meant to mean... I am often in pursuit of the true meaning of a word or words. Whether you're a writer, author, blogger or reader, I hope that you are, too.  

Creative means relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. This brought another question to mind; 'Are writers also artists?' Are they interchangeable? Can a writer also be an artist? But I will touch on that in a later post. Today I want to talk about what it means to be creative. 

Now, when I think of the word imagination, I think of a child. I hear an argument between couples, 'You're imagining it!' This is dismissive of our imagination, of our skill, which I'm not interested in. I also hear, 'That kids got an overactive imagination.' You think of the kid with the imaginary friends who talks to himself. Imagination means the action of forming new ideas, images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses, external meaning coming or derived from a source outside the subject affected. While I still see the kid with the imaginary friends, I also see a far more intricate definition than I was anticipating. And creativity is just that; intricate, complex and fascinating. 

This definition, in a simpler state, means that our imagination is responsible for the process of creating new ideas that do not currently exist where our senses of sight, scent, hearing, taste and touch are concerned. Imagination also means the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful. I actually adore this definition. It brings us back to our original question of creativity, which brings the definition full circle, and I love when that happens. 

Though, the simplest definition of all is the part of the mind that imagines things. I thought two things, 'Well what does imagine mean, and what part of the brain is responsible for this?' In a past life, I would've gone into full detail about the literal sense of which part of the brain handled imagining and imagination. I love psychology and philosophy, but there's only so much time in a life, let alone in a day.  There are a million different avenues I would pursue in life if I had the time; for now, I'll pursue the definition of to imagine, which means to form a mental image or concept of. 

In its very simplest form, creativity means exactly what we all think it means; to imagine. To dream. Day dream, even. But true creativity, complex creativity is so much more than that, and a complex and intricate level of creativity is required to be more than a child with imaginary friends. We prove that everyday as writers, as authors, as artists. We have the ability to connect these mental images and string them along into books and drawings and speeches and analytics. I often read about being your true self, letting yourself shine through in your writing, rather than diminishing your light and watering yourself down in hopes of gaining popularity! Embrace your ability to be creative! Let it shine through your work, no matter what sort of work it is! Be proud that you can do something with your imagination and creativity. 

As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed today's post. If you did, feel free to leave a comment below, amble through other similar posts, and don't forget to tweet @TresaWriter! Happy reading and writing my friends. 

No comments:

Post a Comment