Creativity

'There are many perspectives available on the study of creativity. Creativity has been seen as motivation, blind variation, divergent thinking, and an ability to discover new problems.' M. Csikszentmihalyi

Csikszentmihalyi says that creativity is blind variation, which is building on the work of

Donald Campbell (1960) who adds selective retention as the other component. The

variation-selection process plays a crucial role initially in how humans were adapting to the

world, now we moved to adapt the world to our needs. The exponential growth of creativity

in humans has its firm foundations in the accumulated previous experience and knowledge,

we make, we gather information, we pass information, and each unique individual chooses

what to retain and what to develop further, experiment, and build upon.

There is spontaneous and deliberate creativity. (Dietrich, 2004) Each human being is creative. Creativity isn’t some godsend epiphany to a few chosen

ones. Generate and test thought trials are the processes that do all the creating and designing in the biosphere. Creativity is the ability to solve problems in new ways, the ability to discover, to see new problems, which I consider essential for progress.

According to Csikszentmihalyi to be creative the individual must have the physical and

mental energy, the fresh naïve perspective and the discipline to pursue their work and

passions. While some people seem to come by creativity naturally, there also seem to be

things we can do to build and strengthen this ability. Willingness to try new things and

explore new ideas improve creativity. “Openness to experience” is predictive of creative

achievement in the arts (Kaufman et al., 2016). The more we are willing to experiment and

create, the bigger the chance to stumble on a novel idea or create something completely

original. The motivation, the urge, the spontaneous desire to break existing patterns and

create new behaviours, new problems and new solutions, challenging the current status quo

is essential in humanity’s survival. It is transformative. It is not a tool it is not a skill; it is who we are. When looking for an answer on where that motivation comes from, I found that

DNA evidence suggests we all carry gene DRD4-7R – the “Wanderlust gene” which is responsible for risk-taking, novelty-seeking, sensation-seeking, and constant need for

exploration. This gene likely plays some role in our desire to experience new things.

'In the morning, you wake up and build a fire. This is a great way to think about the creative process. You have to bring the fire to life, feed it, tend it, then make… ' Kae Tempest

You “tend” to fire. You do not just bring into being

something that wasn’t there before but invest time and effort, and focus on it. I firmly

believe that being disciplined and proactive is part of being creative. Only availability to

spend focused time on a task unlocks the “flow” - that’s when the prefrontal cortex is

deactivated, and there is no sense of self, intention and agency…consideration of the

possible consequences of the ongoing action (Dietrich,2004). Being online for example

stifles creativity - creativity involves ”getting things done” as implied by Tempest –

productivity, which is only possible when we devote time and effort to it. Quality is a

probabilistic function of quantity…quantity is a predictor of quality. (Dietrich,2004) Being

creative is not some special magical quality, it is the will to try again and again and is the

combined effort of Intention, Purpose and Quantity.