What is creativity?
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He wanted to invite ‘creative ideas’.
Let us see if there are any such ideas?
First we should be very clear what do we mean by creativity?
We use habitually many words and hardly note that we know the simple dictionary meaning only which is useful in day-to-day things of life, but there are other meanings of the words which convey different sense to different people.
For example if we think about the word ‘creativity’, this may refer to a sense where we produce or make something useful. Cooking out a good recipe is also a kind of creativity like writing a poem or a composing a musical theme.
Thus creativity may refer to bringing out a thing which is of some use or another. This may be only a skill, a routine job as one is supposed to do in a factory or in an office.
There is yet another kind of creativity when one is sensitive to life in its many forms. May be, about humans, animals, trees, mountains, rivers or oceans. When one attentively looks at these things, not with a purpose of studying their behavior but because one feels a kind of intimacy with them. Just as one feels to a new-born baby. When this activity turns into a ‘study’, a purpose is attached and the observation narrows to a limited field and within a set context. Is this creativity?
When one is open to the life around oneself, and there is no purpose, but just because one loves the life as such, there is thrill of discovery.
Like a child caressing a puppy, or looking at the bird. There is no comparison. There is only attention. One need not crave for getting information or knowledge about what one was connected with.
In the same way one may sketch or draw a picture, in pencil or in color, on paper or a wall, or board. The activity may be aimed at a purpose or the activity defines the purpose. In the former case the activity is restricted in a limited sense. There is another way of sketching / drawing a picture, when one starts without having a pre-notion, no set purpose. One may though have a purpose in mind like drawing a sparrow sitting on the window-sill. That is just a nominal purpose and helps one greatly no doubt. But when one has an idea, it is utterly difficult to draw or sketch the picture until the idea is not a ‘visible’ one.
In the same way when a musician composes a theme or a song, the song comes to him from within and any ‘idea’ that is not in audible form will only impede his creation.
We see in this way, one truly creates when one is utterly devoid of a pre-notion / premise or idea about what one is going to create.
Then there is the ‘medium’. The music, the poetry, the sculpture, A kitchen recipe, or a piece of Art in metal, stone or wood. Ask an artist.
Of course he has an idea in very preliminary form and he could even indicate what is his idea. But the creativity leads him by hand and when the creativity is over what he has created hardly resembles with the idea he had in the beginning. Occasionally one tries to create something and quite another thing comes out in the form of the creation.
I was quite unaware what I was going to write and this piece (good or bad whatever) happened.
--
This Dipawali while returning to home one evening, I saw an old man with his grand-daughter. He said : “Today is 18 th of the month, tomorrow ?” “19 th” she responded. Then this counting went till the ‘next month’ and then… It was difficult for the child to understand what his grand-father was driving at. Then He said : Then there will be October 1… then so on till a date was arrived which he announced will be ‘Dipawali’…
Ha-Ha-Ha He laughed aloud. She too had to join the joy.
Is this creativity?
A concept of ‘time’ was being instilled in her tender infant mind.
We teach our children such concepts of time, places and things. We associate a ‘word’ and the ‘word’ becomes the master. Our mind gets crowded with empty words and we tend to believe we have great knowledge.
‘Creativity’ is one such word.
‘Love’ is another.
We have use for the words like chair, table, milk, tea or water, road, street, day, night and season.
But when it comes to naming the feelings do we really know what sense we convey / have in mind when we say ‘creativity’ or ‘love’, 'faith', 'belief', 'Truth', 'Reality', 'religion', 'God', ?
We no doubt readily understand what we mean when we say ‘hatred’, ‘violence’, ‘fear’, ‘anxiety’, ‘sorrow’, ‘envy’, ‘desire’, ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’, but do we, with this much clarity understand the words ‘creativity’, ‘Love’, ‘affection’, ‘peace’, ‘beauty’, 'faith', 'belief', 'Truth', 'Reality', 'religion', 'God', ? We sure have a vague / dismal / clumsy / obscure feeling of these words but that feeling keeps changing all the time, whereas the feeling associated with the former set of words namely ‘hatred’, ‘violence’, ‘fear’ ‘anxiety’, ‘sorrow’, ‘envy’, ‘desire’, ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’, remains comparatively the same.
--
--
He wanted to invite ‘creative ideas’.
Let us see if there are any such ideas?
First we should be very clear what do we mean by creativity?
We use habitually many words and hardly note that we know the simple dictionary meaning only which is useful in day-to-day things of life, but there are other meanings of the words which convey different sense to different people.
For example if we think about the word ‘creativity’, this may refer to a sense where we produce or make something useful. Cooking out a good recipe is also a kind of creativity like writing a poem or a composing a musical theme.
Thus creativity may refer to bringing out a thing which is of some use or another. This may be only a skill, a routine job as one is supposed to do in a factory or in an office.
There is yet another kind of creativity when one is sensitive to life in its many forms. May be, about humans, animals, trees, mountains, rivers or oceans. When one attentively looks at these things, not with a purpose of studying their behavior but because one feels a kind of intimacy with them. Just as one feels to a new-born baby. When this activity turns into a ‘study’, a purpose is attached and the observation narrows to a limited field and within a set context. Is this creativity?
When one is open to the life around oneself, and there is no purpose, but just because one loves the life as such, there is thrill of discovery.
Like a child caressing a puppy, or looking at the bird. There is no comparison. There is only attention. One need not crave for getting information or knowledge about what one was connected with.
In the same way one may sketch or draw a picture, in pencil or in color, on paper or a wall, or board. The activity may be aimed at a purpose or the activity defines the purpose. In the former case the activity is restricted in a limited sense. There is another way of sketching / drawing a picture, when one starts without having a pre-notion, no set purpose. One may though have a purpose in mind like drawing a sparrow sitting on the window-sill. That is just a nominal purpose and helps one greatly no doubt. But when one has an idea, it is utterly difficult to draw or sketch the picture until the idea is not a ‘visible’ one.
In the same way when a musician composes a theme or a song, the song comes to him from within and any ‘idea’ that is not in audible form will only impede his creation.
We see in this way, one truly creates when one is utterly devoid of a pre-notion / premise or idea about what one is going to create.
Then there is the ‘medium’. The music, the poetry, the sculpture, A kitchen recipe, or a piece of Art in metal, stone or wood. Ask an artist.
Of course he has an idea in very preliminary form and he could even indicate what is his idea. But the creativity leads him by hand and when the creativity is over what he has created hardly resembles with the idea he had in the beginning. Occasionally one tries to create something and quite another thing comes out in the form of the creation.
I was quite unaware what I was going to write and this piece (good or bad whatever) happened.
--
This Dipawali while returning to home one evening, I saw an old man with his grand-daughter. He said : “Today is 18 th of the month, tomorrow ?” “19 th” she responded. Then this counting went till the ‘next month’ and then… It was difficult for the child to understand what his grand-father was driving at. Then He said : Then there will be October 1… then so on till a date was arrived which he announced will be ‘Dipawali’…
Ha-Ha-Ha He laughed aloud. She too had to join the joy.
Is this creativity?
A concept of ‘time’ was being instilled in her tender infant mind.
We teach our children such concepts of time, places and things. We associate a ‘word’ and the ‘word’ becomes the master. Our mind gets crowded with empty words and we tend to believe we have great knowledge.
‘Creativity’ is one such word.
‘Love’ is another.
We have use for the words like chair, table, milk, tea or water, road, street, day, night and season.
But when it comes to naming the feelings do we really know what sense we convey / have in mind when we say ‘creativity’ or ‘love’, 'faith', 'belief', 'Truth', 'Reality', 'religion', 'God', ?
We no doubt readily understand what we mean when we say ‘hatred’, ‘violence’, ‘fear’, ‘anxiety’, ‘sorrow’, ‘envy’, ‘desire’, ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’, but do we, with this much clarity understand the words ‘creativity’, ‘Love’, ‘affection’, ‘peace’, ‘beauty’, 'faith', 'belief', 'Truth', 'Reality', 'religion', 'God', ? We sure have a vague / dismal / clumsy / obscure feeling of these words but that feeling keeps changing all the time, whereas the feeling associated with the former set of words namely ‘hatred’, ‘violence’, ‘fear’ ‘anxiety’, ‘sorrow’, ‘envy’, ‘desire’, ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’, remains comparatively the same.
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