“Creativity is Intelligence having Fun!” — Albert Einstein.
I feel this is so relevant in literally all aspects. We are lucky to be growing up in a time where creativity isn’t just related to “how well you can draw.” Creativity is so subjective, so personal, and so diverse, yet for years together its definition was mixed up with that of being “artistic”. Even though being artistic is definitely a form of being creative, it isn’t the only way to be so.
Lockdown has brought out a creative side in most people that, to be honest, many people were unaware of. Be it doing something crafty or finding various ways to program and develop applications or just simply learning to multitask, creativity can be seen in all shapes and forms, be it in science and technology or in the field of arts.
To Be or Not to Be Creative
We are not unaware of the fact that humans love categorizing things as much as possible. Hence, to keep up with this trend, we discovered the concept of “the left brain” and “the right brain,” also called Brain Lateralization. This is a concept that has been a recurring idea in the intriguing bubble of Personality Tests. I have gone down the rabbit hole when I saw one Genius Test video on which is the dominant side of my brain, only to find myself two hours later completing a Buzzfeed personality test that showed how my music taste reflected in my personality. Not the most accurate, to say the least, but at least it was fun!
Coming back to how which side of your brain affects your creative or logical skills, this is a concept derived from research conducted in the 1960s. Researchers studied the brains of people with epilepsy whose hemispheres had been surgically severed. These individuals had the thick bundle of fibers connecting the brain’s hemispheres cut as a last resort. In these studies, researchers were able to present stimuli to one hemisphere and observe contrasting processing styles. They found that the right hemisphere was important for emotional processing, and the left hemisphere governed language and rational thought.
At first glance, these findings seemed to back up the binary “creative” or “not” thinking. But this “division” was one that had been created artificially. When it became possible to look at healthy, connected brains engaged in creative thought (from the 1991 onward fMRI scanning), a far less simplistic picture emerged. It turns out the “bridge” between the hemispheres, the corpus callosum, was the key to creative thought. This is precisely the proof we need to show that being “logical” is also a sign of creativity.
Like everything else, creativity can either be a phase or a habit, just like all those New Year’s gym resolutions we make. To maintain your creativity in the field you like, you have to keep exercising and practicing. I’m practicing mine as you read. Let us just dive in and see what we can do to make ourselves as creative as possible.
1. Switch your thoughts to Concrete Thinking
Well, I know this may seem absolutely hypocritical compared to whatever I have written about creativity up till now. Though quite ironically to enhance your creativity you first need to master the art of ‘Concrete Thinking.’
Now, what exactly is said Concrete thinking?
To put it simply, concrete thinking is the “A-B-C” of abstract thinking. An article from healthline.com describes it as reasoning, that is, based on what you can see, hear, feel, and experience in the here and now. It’s sometimes called literal thinking because it’s reasoning that focuses on physical objects, immediate experiences, and exact interpretations.
How does this help with creativity, you may ask?
The answer is pretty simple, this is the source for all of our artistic inspiration we get. When we start learning something new, naturally, we first observe the things around us. Then we try to incorporate that into what we are doing. A good example of this is Picasso’s journey as an artist.
When he began exploring the field of art, he initially made accurate self-portraits using charcoal. This, as you can see, is an example of using concrete thinking to learn creativity. As he refined his skills, he gained proficiency in his art, he learned from his experiences and started using abstract thinking to make his works more unique. By doing so, after years and years of practice and experience, his journey as an artist can be seen through his various self-portraits over the years.
In the end, what I realize is that the more we deny what is in front of us the more we create a mental block, which hampers our creativity. This brings us to our next point in increasing creativity.
2. Which parts of the story I’m telling myself are empirically true? A.k.a Self- Reflection.
Picking up where we left off at the last point, we cannot enhance our creativity until we move past this phase of denial. Now, we can justify anything and everything if we give ourselves enough time and perspective.
But is that how things should really be? It is always easier to point fingers at others and justify our innocence, but being your own critic and self-reflecting is an art of its own.
What does telling yourself an “empirically true” story actually mean?
This simply means that whatever situation you decide to reflect upon, be it the time your performance wasn’t as you expected, or your recovery from a heartbreak, telling yourself what is empirically true means to possess the ability to view the situation from a third-person point of view that is unbiased. Essentially, to be creative you have to first stop denying the reality and see things for what they actually are. There are a few ways to achieve this and the following points are from a blog written by Smita Kishore and I truly vibe with them:
· Practice free writing: This just means to write down your thoughts the way they occur without overthinking it. I have tried this myself and I found that this is similar to simulating a confrontation wherein you realize mid-argument that you are wrong in certain aspects.
· Give yourself a few minutes of silence each day: By doing this you can truly concentrate on your thoughts and have a little QnA session reflecting on whether you reacted or responded to a particular situation appropriately and how you could handle it differently.
· Be honest with yourself: This is by far the toughest to accomplish in my opinion, and I’m not going to lie, it’s absolutely normal if you can’t sometimes. You are your own best judge and only when you can critique yourself fairly as necessary will you be able to hype yourself up.
· Trust yourself: Trusting yourself is one of the most helpful things you can do for yourself in life. It can help you build confidence, makes you more trustworthy, and makes the process of decision making much easier. To trust yourself, all you need is a little effort and develop the ability to introspect.
3. Find Something to Organize
I’m no psychologist myself, but one thing that I have realized is, in my experience, organizing something weirdly helps me to organize my mind as well, which in turn helps me when I feel creatively hampered. Many research papers have shown how the state of your room can possibly represent the state of your mind at any given moment.
Cleaning your room or basic organization can many a time help you become more resourceful. As Marie Kondo states in the New York Times bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, “From the moment you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life. As a result, your life will start to change.”
In my opinion, at times, it is absolutely fine to wake your inner Monica Geller and go about organizing your study area placing everything “perpendicularly” (yes, I am obsessed with Friends and yes, I do think it’s a little overrated but I enjoy watching the sitcom nonetheless) or organizing your closet. While doing so, many a time you won’t even realize how many creative, “jugadu” ideas you may come up with just to make sure that all your clothes fit in properly yet appear aesthetically pleasing. Just in case you do need help, many platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, etc have numerous life hacks that you can use or customize for your own needs.
4. Seek Out Nature
Like honestly! Even if only through photographs, seeking out nature can give rise to a plethora of ideas and creativity. Nature is so beautiful, yet somehow underrated. The best part is nature is not necessarily the source of creativity only for art.
Many machines and buildings are also built by taking inspiration from the world around us. For example, UK’s most iconic architectural structure, The Gherkin was built taking inspiration from the structure of sea anemones and sea sponges, while the structure for the Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe was inspired by how termites build their nests. If you like, feel free to check out the Gaudí House Museum for more works in this style.
Nature will always inspire creativity in us.
5. Work with Different People
Last but certainly not least, I cannot stress how much interacting with new people helps to enhance your brain’s creative abilities. For my fellow introverts reading this article, I know this seems unnecessary when you can do things on your own to enhance your creativity, but trust me on this, it works. I’m an introvert myself, and there’s nothing that I value more than some “me time” to recharge and relax. But ever since I saw this anime called Shokugeki no Soma- Food Wars, it has inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and work with different people.
So how it goes is that the protagonist, Yukihira Soma wants to be at the top of his culinary high school’s student council, called the Elite Ten. Now, to acquire a seat in the aforementioned Elite Ten he needs to challenge his fellow classmates and the previous Elite Ten members to a cook-off, otherwise known as Food Wars or Shokugeki. So basically, the anime shows how he gathers knowledge from his peers who are proficient in various aspects of the culinary arts, and how he uses that information in creative ways to achieve his goal. My point with this mini anime review is that working with other people gives you a different perspective in most situations and problems, hence enhancing your creativity.
Conclusion:
To conclude, the sky is literally the limit when it comes to enhancing your creativity in any field that interests you, and something that may seem really monotonous at first glance may also hide a lot of scope for creativity. It all just depends on where you choose to find it. These were some of the things I felt helped enhance my creativity and I would certainly love to know your guys’ opinion as to what helped inspire you and release the creative juices.
