Dividing The Creatives From The Non-Creatives

There's something about creatives and their endeavours which scare people. To do something that hasn't yet been done and to throw yourself into a line of work which doesn't have set rules of what is right and what is wrong, often creates a blurred line when it comes to 'success'. There's this idea, often depicted in movies and almost exclusively applies to artists and writers, that creative souls spend the majority of their lives as failures, having to choose between their passion and their profit. Until they finally stumble upon an idea which becomes a phenomenon and then they crawl back into their hole which they came from, never successfully topping that and becoming a 'one hit wonder'.

I think this fear comes from the occurrence of writers block or creative block and thus stops people from reaching for this dream of creating. The truth is, creators don't need fancy degrees or 'permission', if you will, to be creative. Sure, there are areas of expertise where their creativity flourishes at it's best but it isn't exclusive to that one area.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to understand." - Albert Einstein.

Creative people are often portrayed as mentally unstable, alcoholic insomniacs. But why? If you're a creator yourself, you'll relate to getting ideas at the most inappropriate times and having a small window of opportunity to write them down before they leave your mind. Whether it's 2am and you're trying to get to sleep or you see some strangers in the park and need to perfectly capture the scene you've just witnessed. This feeling of sudden creativity can spark assumptions that we are impulsive.

It's not only this fear of creatives that stops people attempt to achieve something in their life or to work hard on something, it's also the fear of failure or judgement. This type of fear is instilled in us, not from birth, but from negative, unproductive criticism along the way. I'm sure we've all had moments in our lives when we've been really proud of something you've spent hours or maybe even weeks working on and someone had a good laugh at your expense. If you're constantly told that you are not good at something, eventually you just stop trying. It knocks you.

We need original thinkers. There's no question about that, but what we need to work on is our division of creative people and non-creative people. Someone who could achieve great success and fulfilment from painting may never pick up a paintbrush because he's 'not a creative person'.

What we're in need of is a little more positive reinforcement so paint things, make music and write poetry. Create and don't stop creating. If someone says you're not good at something, do it anyway.

Do you consider yourself "creative"?