Creativity
Why creating is daunting but necessary
What is Creativity
Creativity is forming something out of nothing. Art is giving shape to something illusory. Something that doesn’t exist and is the combination of the artist’s experiences. Even when creating something completely new, artists can tell if something looks wrong. There are laws for creation, these laws may all be different but do exist.
Creating
When I first started writing, I worried about thinking of topics. My entire writing history was poetry, so it wasn’t the best start for consistency. Yet, after I began writing and creating, it felt like my brain flicked a switch. In daily life and while thinking, I would process events and create new topics. Expanding these topics, I also knew if this was wrong. This sense also changes over time, changing with me.
The one consistent thread between these is rationalising life. In poetry, I was often confused. Writing would be a way to understand what I was feeling. It also was a way to calm down (lacking better alternatives). Writing is something similar. Emotional volatility is no longer the issue. The reasoning behind the actions I take and the decisions I make prove elusive. Until I have to sit down and rationalise them.
Creativity, in its essence, is an expression of a lived experience.
Creating With AI
If creativity is an individual’s experience and perspective, how does creating with AI fit in? With art, there’s always been a sense that another human accomplished this. Someone like me was able to create this out of nothing. Art is almost an expression of a collective as much as it is of an individual.
This collective expression is how art can come to represent movements or ideals. Banksy’s capitalistic critiques. Kendrick Lamar’s Alright as an anthem against police brutality. The use of family symbols and crests throughout time. Defining a group of people, bringing them together through art.
While many suggest that AI is the next step in art, one has to question how this will impact art's humanising aspect. You can argue that AI creates art in a similar way. Its experience is the array of training data. Yet, is this the same?
Creativity as a Social Critique
The culmination of an individual’s lived experience. Creativity has the ability to be a social critique. This became obvious when I kept thinking up a single line. “Rob a man of their creativity and you rob them of their ability to rebel.” While sounding out of Orwell’s 1984, this line seems to make more sense the more I ponder it. When one can’t imagine a better life, one only becomes able to live this single experience. It is creativity that is the root of our hedonism. Creativity allows us to dream.
Often, this dream highlights injustices around us. With this, there is one profession that throughout the ages has wielded creativity. Comedians. Jesters, such as the Polish jester Stańczyk, were known for critiquing their monarchs. Nowadays, the role of social commentary is given to comics. Comics such as Chapelle or Schulz. Who often stir up controversy on purpose to great effect.
This role is not only for comedians though. There are many other examples of creativity used for that purpose. These include Alright, Banksy’s art, and Fight Club. Many great pieces of art are social critiques.
This does not mean that all creativity is a social critique. Creativity may simply be a personal expression.
In our hyper-stimulated world, it is often hard to find a moment of peace. When you do, your mind drifts to notifications, checking with friends. You pick up your phone. Fall back in. Humans have not evolved to deal with the amount of stimulation we are presented with. What we need to do is unplug. If we don’t, we threaten one of the founding principles of our growth as a species.
Creativity in its Current State
There is an argument to be made that creativity stems from boredom. Without the time to sit around, and do nothing, how do we think, how do we create? It’s not just me who thinks this. Bill Gates spends a week at a time without electronics, devoted to reading. Warren Buffet does not have a smartphone. We spend 7 hours daily in front of screens. Unsurprisingly, some of the highest-performing people in the world safeguard their boredom.
Additionally, there are many articles written on the power of boredom. This includes Bench & Lench (2013) stating “boredom motivates pursuit of new goals”. With the process of creating being the pursuit of a goal, creativity itself is under threat.
The Essence
Creativity is an exercise of the mind. An expression of humanity that can be moulded into a form of social critique. It is through creativity that we can dream. Dream of a better life and everything it may entail. The very fact that we are not bound by realism is exactly what makes it so powerful.
While not everyone has to create, everyone must dream.
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