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CREATIVITY. Where do you put that idea?

Is creativity a painting? A sculpture? A song? A piece of music, art or literature? A mathematical equation? A sunset? Is it something you can “do”?

In about two seconds I’m going to write in bold type, the name of an object commonly known to people around the world. When you read the word, immediately you may notice your mind pulls up a picture of this object.

Ready?

Tree.

Did you get the picture?

Of course you did.

And whatever “picture” your mind pulled up is the picture that for you, is a way to identify all trees everywhere. It is identification of the concept of “tree”.

Trees do not all look like the one you saw in your mind when you read the word “tree”. But still, your mind instantly created an association and you understood — and through the word tree – even though we’re seeing two different things, we can have a conversation about trees.

It isn’t necessary for you and I to have the exact same picture of a tree to communicate effectively about trees as long as there is in both of us a way to understand what “tree” is.

Now, you might call this quick and dirty process that mind’s use to navigate a 3D world, “creative”.

It’s actually not.

Action always precedes the realization of a phenomena.

The identified mind is the action. It moves quickly and usually without being noticed.

QUESTIONING whatever is identified by the mind is what opens up the possibility of realization.

And waiting a fraction longer than usual and asking, “Is this identification that mind came up with really true?” is where true creativity can occur.

Mind identifies someone we like and someone else we don’t. Mind identifies someone we think doesn’t like us and emotions are produced. We don’t choose the emotions; they’re instant and come from having a thought!

So what’s happening when you question a thought is this: you’re making the activity that usually happens instantly… conscious.

Let’s ask the question again, “What happens internally when you hear the word CREATIVITY?”

This word is identified completely differently for different people. And so the difficulty of figuring out how to become a truly creative human being is often left up in the air. The mind cannot nail it down in the usual way because “creativity” is not a thing.

In the video included below, the conversation is obviously aimed at the educational systems but there’s a much deeper wave that applies to day-to-day living as well.

This talk by Sir Ken Robinson is entertaining, engaging and certainly thought provoking. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the COMMENTS area.

Lovingly,
Andi Mac