What is creativity? Is it merely an act of creation? Or is it more of that? Why is it crucial nowadays and how can we foster it? How can we all be a bit more creative in our day — day in and day out?
Yesterday, I found this beautiful video by Ethan Hawke about Creativity as an act of expression and of bringing our own being out there in an act of love for what we do.
I think it is beautiful and the essence of what creativity is. What comes so naturally to us, that we cannot ignore it and how can we simply be and do what comes so naturally and share our creativity with the world in that way. It is an act of love and it is an act of allowing ourselves to simply be.
A difficult treat and a difficult act of being in today’s world, where we are surrounded by people, places, moments, products, companies, ads and emails screaming from all around us and asking for our attention: “Hey, buy this thing”, “Hey, do it that way”, “hey, why are you so stupid, that way you will never win”, “join me, I know the truth”, and so on. It is loud around us, it is busy around us and very often it will thus be very busy within us. Because what shall we do? Whom shall we follow? What shall we take our attention to?
I believe we forget one simple thing though, that this is all others screaming for out attention, wanting us to pay attention. But what if we listen, accept, and move on. On our own path. In our own way. With our own speed. What if we take turns? What if we do not pay attention to those that want our attention, but what if we follow that curiosity, that love, that what comes to us, that we pay attention to naturally and then act upon it.
The creative act. The simple being. The attention that flows into our craft? The time, the excitement, the curiosity. And we simply let it flow. And create out of what is within?
And then there is this other fantastic video of Rick Rubin about Creativity.
He talks about resonance, he talks about how it is the work ethic of putting our work out there in the world and the act of doing so. And that we do not necessarily know whether our creation will resonate with the world or not, but it is in shipping the work and seeing what happens. And then in some rare and more moments there is resonance between our creative art and the moment people see it and get impacted by it in one way or the other.
It reminds me of several things:
What Rick Rubin describes is similar to what Seth Godin puts down in his books. The idea of shipping. Simply shipping work and then there will be beauty, will be magic out of it.
Originality is this exciting and rare moment where we produce something new, something coming from us originally (it can only be original when it comes from us, because what else would it be when we copy?), and there are people resonating with it
Isn’t that the same thing with entrepreneurship — finding product — market fit and then there is magic, if that happens? But it may take time, several iterations, going back and forth and the difference with Entrepreneurship is that for many entrepreneurial companies (not all!) at some point it may not be original anymore, it becomes planned, calculating, money-seeking.
What if marketing and sales and the attention that so many of us ask for today is all the natural act of creation and putting our work out there? It is just that everyone is doing it now, which makes it difficult to figure out how to find calm in the chaos and to find clarity in conformity? Still the question remain, how much of that work is based on an original work? And what happens when there is a company, a group of original thinkers? Can they combine into one magical thinking? When is it then still original work and when does it become work in a different manner? Rick Rubin puts it beautifully, everyone is doing the work together, but it is the focus on making the piece of art a success versus each individual focusing on the individual gain and ego of “being right”. After all, it may be our mindset that distinguishes the one from the other and it may be the act of creativity as a self-expression that shows makes the difference of a creative original beautiful endeavor and one that is copy-cated for the gain of its individuals for the rich, bitch, quick money to turn around and say “fuck you” to the world and not care anymore.
I believe we feel it when there is a person that is original. We may not like them, we may not agree, but they make evoke something in us, they make us think, they intrigue has, they bring out something new within us. They make us feel someting. They make us resonate with what they do. We want to be close to them, we come back to them, we keep thinking of them. And by the simple act of shippping their art, their being, their creativity, their originality to the world, they have given us a new sense of life, a new sense of living and a new sense of knowing why we are here and what we want to ship to the world. They are the drop that hits the calm water and gives it waves. Small and soft ones and loud and breaking ones. These waves shake us, change us, re-create us. They make us another person. We resonated. We changed. And we change the world through the change that we then bring to others through us being changed so profoundly.
Creativity is within us all. It is us in its simplest form. It is being. And expressing. And keep doing so. Not running away, not standing still, but moving, sharing, expressing, feeling, resonating and being. It is the simplest, most beautiful act of being and interacting with the world and doing what we love and sharing our love with the world.
Creativity is not simply an act of survival. But one of living. We can survive only. But what is the price if we merely survive and not strive, not live, not being alive? Will we survive in the long-run or will we lose all — the living and being and surviving — all together?
How would the world be different if we would all be more creative? When we would all be more alive?