Can Anyone Be Creative?
Yes.
Okay, that was easy. Can I take the rest of the post off? No?
Fine.
Look, here’s the deal, Creativity is nothing more or less than coming up with a new solution to an existing problem. Sometimes that problem is getting your drink out of a cup without a straw, and sometimes it’s explaining that empty hole we feel inside when we turn off our phones and the noise of life stops.
Want to be more Creative? Cool. Here’s how:
Step 1: Think of problems every day
Step 2: Think of ways to solve them every day
Step 3: There is no step three
We act like Creativity is some vague thing, but in reality it’s not. Someone has to be the dreamer. Someone has to come up with ideas. The trouble is, most of us forget what it’s like to be creative (probably because of all the “stay inside the lines” talk in Kindergarten).
But then we might get to this question:
Can anyone be an artist?
Again, my answer is yes. But most people aren’t.
This isn’t some kind of elitist position here. I don’t think only a select few are “chosen” to create art for the rest of the world.
No, most of my reason for believing this is because Artists go one step further than Creatives. Artists bring ideas into reality.
Anyone can come up with ideas. I thought of 10 this morning in the shower. That’s because I’m creative.
But art is the tangible reflection of an intangible world. It is idea incarnate.
There are far more creative people than there are artists because many people do not have the willpower, talent, or resources to bring their ideas to life. Good ideas are full of promise. Good art is full of work.
The best artists make solutions for problems the world has never even thought of yet. Where others can only reach our mind and reason, artists tap directly into our emotions using a certain medium they have mastered so well they do not need to explain it to anyone.
Beethoven never said: “Moonlight Sonata is about the tragic suffering of man, and the emptiness he feels both when he nods off to sleep at night and when he finally drifts away into eternal slumber.”
He didn’t have to.
“So Todd, what if I have a lot of ideas, but no time?”
Pass them off to an artist. It’s fine to be creative but not artistic. A lot of people are this way. Several of them have the title “CEO.”
“But what if I have a lot of raw talent, but can’t come up with anything new?”
Find your Muse – either within or without. There is no shame in executing on someone else’s idea. You probably do this every day at your “real job.”
Besides, you’re likely to find more pleasure making other’s vision come to life than beating your head against the wall trying to be “original.”
