Deconstructing "Creativity"

It is fascinating see creative individuals perform their miracles. The way a creative brain works is like out of my world. Their new ideas are unpredictable, exciting, sometimes risky, unbelievable, and inviting. Their point of view is at another level. The can connect the-unconnected. Once they do the brainstorming, it's like we waiting for a new wonder to happen, new piece of mind-blowing idea is in the making.

Yep, that's the power of human "creativity". Your level of creativity distinguishes you from others, even though it can be nurtured by anyone.

Creativity often feels like a myth. For some, it feels like magic, that cannot be reproduce anytime we need it.

My goal with this writing is so that you can realize that creativity can be developed by anyone. It's not a myth nor a magic anymore. And so that we can stop saying "I'm not a creative person...".

For me, creativity is the ability to imagine and connect disparate pieces knowledge or experiences together, to come up with novel ideas for problem-solving or self-expression. The word “novel” means new, unusual, interesting, or something original.

As I dig little by little, I started to see elements of creativity and ways to improve it. 

Nature vs. Nurture

It’s a debate of nature versus nurture. Is creativity something we are naturally born with, or something that we can develop. 

Research has shown that certain traits associated with creativity are inherited. Some of these traits are the ability to open to new experiences, having a high level of intelligence, flexibility, and being able to think in a more imaginative manner. It is true that some people are born with the creative potential genetics. Although they have the leverage, but it’s not determine that people that born without the potential genetics could not be creative. Studies suggest that creativity is not just something we are born with but can also be learned, similar to other abilities. So yes it is true that you can learn to be more creative and it is not solely determined by genetics.

The famous “twin studies”, studied the identical twins, separated at birth indicate that our ability to think creatively comes one-third from genetics; but two-thirds of the skill to be creative comes through learning and depends on the environment. If you curious, dig more on this article.

Another identical twins study by scientist Dr Nancy Segal, said that “different environments trigger different gene expressions”. The study shows that even our genes is work in “probabilistic” ways, not in deterministic ways. In other words, even you are born with a super creative DNA, it still depends on “other factors” that could determine whether you’re able to express that creativity or not. It still a probability. Same with the other way, you may have the fact that you’re not born from creative parents. It doesn’t mean that you’re set in stone, and can not change.

Creativity traits come from combination of both nature and nurture. Nurture has a considerably stronger influence than nature. So no excuse, by sustained training and practice within the right environment, you can foster your creativity.

Deconstructing Creativity – Let's make a juice 🥤

Creativity is a complex process. There are many parts involved. The way I see it, its divided into 3 aspects: the raw materials, the process, and the supporting environment.

To elaborate more about it, let me use an analogy; the making of a juice.

1. Start by gathering the fruits and vegetables.
   These are the raw materials. Creativity requires information, knowledge, and past experiences. Without these we can’t make anything. The more the raw materials that are available, the more options we gonna have. The more informations, knowledge, and rich experience we had, the more creative we could become.
2. Get the best blender, make sure the electricity is working.
   It talks about the supporting environments in creativity. It is as important as the raw materials. In order for the creativity process to success, the right environments need to be set in place. They are freedom and confidence. It sounds corny, but yes it is crucial. Without the permission to being free and feeling confidence of themselves, it could jam down the creativity process. If you will be punished for come up with bad idea, then your brain will not dare to be creative. It won’t take a risk. Creativity blooms in freedom and confidence. 
3. Selecting the combination and blend them.
   The process begins. We decide which fruits and vegetables to combine. It might based on taste, nutrition, or personal preference. Creativity involves imagination and association skill. As Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination spans the world”. Our ability to imagine and associate things together to come up with something unique based on the goal. Sometimes we need to try to new combination. Sometimes we could experiment by combining things that seem unconnected, it might come up with something “fresh”, we never knew. Your imagination is the limit. You then need time to blend them together. Creativity requires time to brainstorm. Sometimes when you do brainstorming together within a group, you could combine ideas or knowledge from different people together.
4. Time to pour it out into a glass and test it.
   In this process we do check the ideas, we check for feedbacks.

So those are important elements of creativity. Lets recap:

• Healthy Brain
• Knowledge
• Experience
• Imagination skill
• Association skill
• Freedom (safe space)
• Confidence

Tackle the myths

1# It's exclusive to arts.

Another misbelieved is that creativity is exclusive to the arts like painting, music, or handcrafts. As human, we manifest creativity in everything that we do, whether it is in economy, politic, business, education, parenting, health, sports, any domain we can touch.

“There’s artistry in everything that we do.” — Rainn Wilson (Actor)

You might read this article on your phone. The smartphone itself is an evidence of creativity in technology.

2# Left brain and right brain creativity.

Its not true.

“The reality is that creativity involves interaction of lots of different brain networks that rely on both left and right side of the brain.” — Scott B. Kaufman (Humanistic Psychologist)

“Creative people are using both sides of the brain together” — Wendy Suzuki (Professor of Neuroscience at New York University Center)

Nurturing Creativity 

Now, we know some important keywords in creativity, the task becomes clearer, to boost our creativity we just need to work on those important elements.

Experience more. Go outside. Gain more knowledge. Build your confidence, and be free. Don't judge your idea before you express it. Be brave to express, take the risk, tolerate the risk of uncertainty. Interesting things happen when we don’t know.Creativity begins with not knowing it. It begins with a question: "What if..."

Improve your imagination and association skill. Take care of your brain health.

At this age of technology, you can quickly search those keywords and find out various practices or exercises.

Whether it’s art, writing, music, or problem-solving , creativity plays an important role in our lives. And always remember: “There’s always a room for creativity.”