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Today's
quotation:
The key question isn’t
“What fosters creativity?” But it is "Why in
God’s
name isn’t everyone creative?" Where was the
human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question
might be not why
do people create?, but why do people not create or
innovate? We have
got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of
creativity,
as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.
Abraham Maslow
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Today's
Meditation:
We all are
creative individuals, but I think that most of us find
that it's hard to fit creativity into our lives.
After all, we have jobs to do (or school), we have
families to raise, we have friendships and homes to
maintain. And all those things can wear us down to a
point at which we don't have a whole lot of energy left
over for our creative pursuits. I know that I have a
very hard time writing fiction when school is in session--
my brain is simply too tired sometimes to even
consider trying to make up stories and characters.
I do
my best, though, to make sure that I do something
creative. Perhaps it's writing non-fiction, or
perhaps it's working with photos or websites or
assignments for my students. As human beings, the
creative urge is a strong part of who we are, and if we
don't give it a chance to manifest itself, we're kind of
denying a large part of who we are. We need some
sort of creative outlet, or we're ignoring one of our most
important gifts.
I
like the idea of asking for my crayons back.
Sometimes in restaurants that have crayons for kids, I'll
take a pack to my table and draw something on the
placemat. It's fun. I don't create any
masterpieces, but I do create something. The truth
is, though, that I don't want to give up those "dry,
uninspiring books," for I've learned an awful lot
from them, and I'd like to believe that what I've learned
about the real world helps me to be more creative.
But I'd like to have them in addition to my crayons, please,
and not instead of my crayons.
As
the year comes to a close, it may be a good idea to think
about your chances for creativity in the year that's
coming up. Maybe buying a sketchbook with a few
hundred pages in it and vowing to draw at least one
picture a day-- even if it's a quick sketch that takes five
minutes-- could be a way not just to be creative, but to
improve your drawing skills. It could be that
practicing the piano for five or ten minutes a day can be
a great creative outlet, or writing 500 words a day of
that novel you've been wanting to start. The world
is full of chances for us to express our creativity, but
it really is up to us to bring those chances to life.
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