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How Creative Are You?
From a very young age, and well into my adult years, I didn’t think I was creative. I wasn’t into craftsy things. My efforts to sew my
clothes did not go well, and my knitting products were a mixed bag. At one point I wrote poems on my parents’ Royal typewriter. I wrote one poem about a bull, and have no memory of what I wrote, but at the time I had apparently mixed up bulls and cows. My parents were amused and explained the difference. I felt embarrassed by my mistake, and for a while I stopped writing poems.
But writing seemed to call to me. I certainly loved to read the writing of others. Most of my writing efforts were pretty straightforward. I’ve always been a left-brained, linear thinker, so that’s how I wrote. My writing is workman quality.
In high school I took a creative writing course. I wrote about a murder that had happened next door to us; the man had murdered his wife with a knife. I hadn’t witnessed the act, nor seen the results, but my brother had entered the house afterward and was devastated. The children were bewildered and lost. I wrote about their reaction. The piece was put in our annual creative writing magazine. But I considered the acceptance as a fluke; I still didn’t see myself as creative.
During my college years. I was an English major, and received a “D” on my first paper. I was embarrassed and confused. So I asked the instructor if I could meet with him—not to accuse him of under-grading me, but to find out what had gone wrong. He was very kind and supportive, and I don’t remember his advice, but I suspect that I applied it to all my future papers, as well as to essays I wrote for other classes. It was a turning point of sorts. (As a side note, I switched to a major in history.) But I still didn’t think I was creative, and told people that they couldn’t count on me for creative ideas.
As a business woman, I wrote various articles that were published in human resource publications, police publications and other small magazines. By reproducing them they became marketing tools for my business. They were well-received, but I still didn’t think I was creative. These articles were, after all, practical pieces.
I was moved to write a book on religion. (The author listed is another Susan Quinn; I’ve written to Amazon.) This book was a turning point for me. I was now a genuine author! I began to think that I might be creative after all. I was also asked to provide an essay on forgiveness for a leadership book. Maybe people were taking me seriously. (Have you noticed what a hard sell I am?)
Then I found Ricochet. I fell in love—with writing, with getting feedback, with engaging in dialogue on important issues. And another writer on Ricochet, @iwe, asked me to partner on books on Judaism—me, a returning Jew.
I was finally convinced I was creative.
Recently the topic of creative acts has come up in my writing with @iwe: what does it mean to be a human being who continues G-d’s original act of creation? @iwe believes that when we create something completely new, something that G-d has not already created, we are following in G-d’s path; I agree with him. We also think, however, that creativity is a process. That we may be creative in many different ways, and when we work to be creative, the more creative we become. Some people seem to have the temperament for creativity; others (like me) have to work at it, pursue it regularly, refine it, and keep trying. I believe that G-d is happy when I write, especially with Him in mind, but am I continuing His original creation?
So I have a bunch of questions for you—do you see yourself as creative? How do you express your creativity and in what arenas? And do you see your role in continuing G-d’s creation?
Published in Culture
I’ve also seen some very fine OPs by you, Bryan. Thanks for sharing your Role Playing work–sounds fascinating!
Now if I can only stop commenting on Ricochet and get down to editing . . .
My guess is she means something God does not create directly. Well, that’s how I took it.
Put another way, God did not directly create math and science. Human beings invented them as tools to understand the way He created the universe. God also created the desire in human beings to want to understand the nature of God, and of His creation.
Likewise, man invented paint, water colors, the typewriter, the alphabet language, all in an effort to express himself, whether he’s inspired by God or not. I stay away from the “God created everything” view simply because you have to spend hours defending God for “creating” the Holocaust, Communism, war, etc. The last thing I would want to accuse God of is creating the modern Democrat party . . .
I’ve created over 42,000 Ricochet comments.
IMHO, I say that counts.
You, too?
Ricochet – the potato chip of conservative web sites.
Piker!
Whoever told you that??? :)
(That’s an inside joke, folks – between Ms. Fine and me.)
Pure creativity will take one just so far. (It takes some further than others.) But at some point, perspiration must take over from inspiration, otherwise the work is never completed.
Being “creative” is a lot more hard work than most people suspect.
I think he’s really a bot, to post that many . . .
In the PIT, we’d say, “Uh, phrasing?” We are children of God, created in the image and likeness of God, and God is creative. We cannot help but to express God’s qualities, although many try their hardest to suppress them.
As a process management guy, of course it is. In the short essay I linked to earlier, I glancingly referred to the fact that writing every day at the same time trains the brain to be creative at that time. When one gets used to doing it, one can’t stop it from happening.
You are part and parcel of His creation. That which you create is part of His creation. As we say in Unity, “There is only one power and one presence in all the universe—God, the good, omnipotent.”
I am a channel for God’s creativity, as we all are.
Cooking, art (pastels, oils), music (several instruments, writing), poetry and other forms of writing, etc.
The rose is fully in the rosebud, the only difference is when one looks at it.
I believe that God has given me certain talents and perspectives in order to solve problems. But I can’t take credit for that, it is just how I have been blessed, and of course, as it is a gift from God, I would believe He wants me to use it for good. It can be defined as creative in the sense that it is not how most people would think, but not as true creation, which God reserves for Himself.
Amen and amen!
Does that make me a double-bot?
That’s simply evidence that robots can be creative.
Wise words, arahant. I so appreciate how clear you are, which is a gift I don’t always share!
Aren’t most of your comments memes?
I think are approaches to creativity, if not identical, certainly complementary, @juliana. Thank you for elaborating!
I understand this point of view – I remember having to tell my young son that God did not create trucks. We are each given gifts and talents which lead us in certain directions to possibly make things that are new to or good for society, or ignoring Truth, in directions which are dangerous and harmful. Humans have free will in order to use those gifts for good or evil. As a writer you are using your experiences with words and scenarios and dreams to put all those things into some sort of interesting and unique order. But I do not believe we have the power to create from nothing.
Disagree.
It’s phenomenally easy to be creative. The most creative entity possible is a random character string generator. It’s virtually guaranteed that nobody has ever before created any of the character strings that a random generator comes up with. Every character string it generates is entirely, completely, brand new.
My point is that creativity, as a virtue in and of itself, is over-hyped.
The real trick is to create something that conforms to traditional structural norms just enough to be both intelligible and useful, while also conveying the illusion of novelty.
True of every shuffle of a deck of cards, too.
a) Not most, but many.
b) Even Shakespeare stole from earlier writers.
Yeah, but he definitely improved upon their works.
“This way (holds up a stiletto) or that way (holds up a noose)?”
“To be or not to be? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind…etc.”
I’ll take Willie over old Tom Kyd any day.
No, I’ve met you in the flesh – you’re a real guy! I’m not so sure about him . . .
On your next trip to Ottawa, you should get together. He likes adult beverages as much as the next bot.
In writing, the creative part is darned easy for me. It’s the proofreading and editing that’s hard. However, it’s a necessary part of the process towards a finished product worthy of publication.
I recently got a Royal Flush playing online poker (recreational, i.e. not for real money). I wish I’d had the presence of mind to get a screenshot, since a Royal Flush is phenomenally rare.
The funny thing is, I still lost the game. Thanks to the vagaries and intricacies of how Texas Hold’Em works, that Royal Flush came up in a hand where I couldn’t really profit from it. Nobody else had anything better than a Pair, so that Royal Flush was worth no more to me than Two Pair would have been. As soon as I placed any bet everybody else folded, so I didn’t get any extra points out of the hand. All I won was the ante.
A Royal Flush is useless unless someone else also gets a good (i.e. rare) hand, and is therefore willing to bet hard. If it’s rare for one player to get a hand as good as a Royal Flush, just imagine how much rarer is it for two players to get hands of similar strength?
It’s an illustration of why I like Texas Hold’Em so much. The quality of the cards one is dealt really isn’t the deciding factor for winning the game.
Which is why we’re both here making fresh and creative comments rather than editing our books.
I’m reminded of the first rule of graduate school:
To steal from one is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.