“But I don’t have a creative bone in my body!”
I believe creativity is one of the essential ingredients we need for making good in the world. Sadly, some people don’t think they are creative and I fear this false belief will exclude them from thinking up or starting world healing endeavours. We are all creative and I want you to know this. Then I want you to use your creativity for good.
The battle to believe
I absolutely believe I am creative, but it’s not been an easy ride to say this. I am still neglectful of my creativeness; I feel it needs more attention than I can give. Yet in my heart I crave creativity, I long to create, make and produce more than I consume. I would love to freely and openly describe myself as creative but something holds me back. A voice tells me I have no right to claim this label, that it is sheer audacity I can even write about creativity. Is this the voice of my parents encouraging me to focus on subjects and activities that I am ‘good’ at or that have more earning potential? Is it the voice of my art teacher, who only ever gave us drawing homework and marked me purely on my ability to recreate perfectly proportioned and well-shaded illustrations? Or is it my inner critic that says, ‘nothing you create is worth anything/original/good?’
And yet here I am. Banging the creative drum and calling us all to a life of creativity. Why? Because I fear for the future of our world without more people being creative and using their creativity to make difference.
Do schools kill creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson was (died in 2020) an educationalist and advised governments for decades. His presentation “Do schools kill creativity?” is the most-watched TED talk of all time. He suggests that education has to focus on awakening creativity through alternative teaching and testing methods. In his 2009 book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, he says:
Most of us lose [our creative] confidence as we grow up. Ask a class of first graders which of them think they’re creative and they’ll all put their hands up. Ask a group of college seniors and most of them won’t. I believe passionately that we are all born with tremendous natural capacities, and that we lose touch with many of them as we spend more time in the world.
When I read those words, it was like something grabbed my heart. I could see myself as that 5-year-old child, believing wholeheartedly that I was creative. I loved painting and glueing but building models out of boxes and yoghurt pots was my passion. When I was nine my teacher told me I was a clumsy disaster around the craft table and so I was too embarrassed to go back. When we were required to select subjects for exams I desperately wanted to do art or textiles, but I was not getting top marks in these areas so I chose business, geography and history instead. By the time I left school, I would not have said I was creative and I wasn’t enjoying the academic stuff much either.
Society has diminished the importance of creativity. The Arts are acceptable if you can make a living from them but creativity has been downgraded to crafting, off-the-wall-ideas, mess and frivolity. We extol the virtues of academia, logic, reasoned thinking, research-based solutions, practical and appropriate. We monetise much of the latter and can mock or trivialise the former. I have more recently come to wonder if there is any significance in the idea that creativity is often considered a more feminine trait and logic and the reason more masculine. If this is so is it again any wonder which has become more prized.
Remember, believe, grieve then act
If this is resonating with you and you want to shout from the rooftops once more, “YES! I am creative!”, the following might help. This is the journey I am on to reclaim my creative self.
You may need to remember. Remember that creative child you once were. What did you like doing the most? Drawing? Colouring in? Writing stories? Playing make-believe in the playground? Acting in the school play?
You may need to believe. Believe that you are creative. Think of all the ways you are actually creative even if that isn’t what you’d call it. The way you cook, decorate your home, dress or enjoy music. Perhaps you are known as a problem-solver because of the creative way you approach issues. Maybe you love writing the content for your company’s website, but it’s not your really your job. Are you an avid Instagrammer with a well-curated wall of photographs? Do you write stories for your children’s bedtimes or consistently come up with effective fundraising ideas for your charity?
You may need to grieve. Grieve for a lost part of yourself. Grieve for lost time, lost opportunities and self-denial.
Then act. Don’t grieve forever because then you need to act. We do have creative bones in our body but they are flexed with muscles that need exercise to grow and strengthen.
Creativity is a vital gift
Slowly but surely I have found my way back to creativity. I have new outlets to express creativity and my work is one of these. Now creativity is not just about paint, pens and instruments but a way of thinking. A way of looking at and representing the world around me.
Creativity is a gift, a vital gift. You were born with it, you still have it, now find it and use it.