Creativity is a moment not a personality trait

This is a re-post of an article I wrote for the studio I currently work for. A recent comment sent me to a blog that discusses creativity. It inspired me to dig this up in response to their question “Is creativity a natural born talent and can it be acquired through hard work and perservance.”

I watched this TED talk about 6 months ago by Ms Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity; she poses the thought that rather than a person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius.

If you haven’t got 20 minutes to watch the video, the jist is…

A “Genius” as a 3rd party, disembodied from the human, a spirit-like presence that runs through the world, passing through each of us occasionally.

If you’ve got a little longer than a sentence and want my take…

When you think about it, it kind of makes sense, this ‘genius’ as an external force. No one is creative all the time, no one comes up with genius ideas everytime you pose a problem to them. Ms Gilbert speaks of a time where people were said to have geniuses (in the roman era) and it wasn’t until the industrial revolution when humans, so self-obsessed with their own accomplishments began calling themselves geniuses.

I love the idea of this parrallel world, a cosmic playground where ‘geniuses’ are climbing an invisible jungle gym, each one tied to a human with an elastic mystical string… our own, individual little genius. Ms Gilbert talks about the pressure that is put on artists and ‘creatives’ after they produce one idea that is deemed successful by the largest portion of a population. “That man is a genius!” has become a common term that is used so haphazardly that as soon as one ‘becomes’ a genius, they’re expected to stay one and keep producing innovative solutions to all of life’s problems. If they don’t, the natural human reaction is to think “Hmmm, maybe I’m over the hill, perhaps i’ve peaked and everything I do from now on will simply be second-rate”.

What we as creatives (nay, all people) need to do is befriend our genius. Understand that there is this external force, a ‘spark’ of creativity.  Looking at it this way, the way the Romans did, instantly takes pressure off a person – it turns creativity in to a moment, not a personality trait. Perhaps that moment is when our genius decides it’s time to give us a big hug. The question is how do we ask for that hug?

It’s an impossible question to answer in a single blog post because everyone is different. Perhaps ‘creatives’ or, more accurately, those in creative professions have learned how to ask for that hug in some way, they’ve managed to keep their genius close to them.

Since the talk by Ms Gilbert I’ve tried to identify what happens in my own creative process, to learn from my own actions – what tools do I turn to in the physical world that might help promote that hug from a genius in the meta-physical world? Sure there’s a lot of research out there on *how* to solve problems; mind-maps, brain-storming, pen and paper vs computer etc but what I want to know is what works for me.. what have I learned in my 6 years in a design profession, helping to promote communication visually and what can I do more of (or less of) to bring the genius closer to me; in short, I want more hugs! I hope to go in to this in more detail in future posts as I’ve only begun to uncover some of the methods I use naturally. Needless to say I *do* seem to have a ‘system’ and i’ve surprised myself with some of my methods.

Back to the point of this post though – to inspire those who believe they don’t have a creative bone in their body to take pressure off themselves – look at it from a different angle. Work out your own way of asking for a hug from your genius because you’ll surprise yourself by the sparks you’ll see when you ask the question in the right way. We can all benefit from the great ideas that are out there; we just need more people with the confidence to find them!