“Only fools are satisfied”
- Vienna, Billy Joel

In the summer of eighth grade, my school introduced a new activity- creative writing. Creative writing classes were now held every Wednesday and graded like the core subjects. This was followed by many rants, stories that were barely corrected and neatly stacked on the classroom shelves. Artworks were dumped in the art room only to be thrown away the next year to accommodate the new ones that followed the same fashion. These few years of intense training inspired me to open a blog, similar to many, whose creative intuitions were resuscitated during quarantine. It’s ironic how being confined inside the four walls impelled us to throw the box and think of something anew.

The definition of creativity across dictionaries narrows down to the ability to invent new ideas. In an ideal world, creativity embodies originality and individuality. The word ‘creativity’ is ubiquitous. The birth of popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in the 21st century ushered in a new generation of creative thinkers and provided a much-deserved platform and livelihood for artists. Hashtags like #creativeart, #expressyourself, and #createeveryday accelerated the process.

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The pandemic ensued an uptick in the emergence of content creators and viewership per se. Companies would much rather prefer creative minds than exalted academic degrees. Creativity is one of the most demanding prowess in the global market. Companies use creativity as a valuable asset to harness profit. The sheer number of Ted Talks on YouTube on creativity is a testimony to this phenomenon. It’s hard to resist the urge to use Google for every assignment or look up art décor ideas on Pinterest. It’s extremely difficult in a situation where social media is diluted by plagiarized content and engineered by highly sophisticated algorithms. Creating something using one's imagination involves confrontation and an internal conflict is sure to play. One needs to rethink and challenge the absurd notions to stand different from the rest. The whole process includes unlearning and relearning a lot of stuff. On the other hand, it’s more tempting and easy to copy from the internet than doing proper research on the concerned topic.

Psychologists use ‘divergent thinking’ tests to measure creativity. These tests consist of open-ended questions and the subject is given enough opportunity to think in different ways than a specific way. Intelligence tests measure ‘convergent thinking’ and are scored in terms of intelligence quotient (IQ). The study of creativity in psychology is recent and was given importance only in the 1950s by J.P.Guilford. Creativity also means improvising on the established idea or rearranging a concept as one desires. It differs across various cultures and the exodus of humanity across the world over centuries has added nuances and the inter-cultural relationship has developed. Mythological figures, heroes, and epics mentioned in the Greek, Hindu, Christian, and other religious orders manifest humans' creativity over eons of time. Homemade pizzas or DIY bangs render a perfect example of creativity in recent years.

Vulnerability is the touchstone of any creative work. Neil Gaiman once famously said, “I realized that if you are going to be a successful writer [….], you had to be the equivalent of walking down a street naked. You had to be able to show too much of yourself. You had to be just a little more honest than you were comfortable with.” The best creative work presents the crude reality of life and its mundanities. It tenderly strikes a chord with the viewer yet maintains tenacity. It is reclusive yet unabashedly bold and stunning. The best works are often produced in moments of vulnerability as art provides a perfect escape. It’s important to know that though people seek art in hard times, it is not a necessary attribute that one has to endure to be creative.

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Creativity dawns in the most unexpected situations. Strumming your guitar in the middle of the night or prepping for a school drama performance. Is creativity always a result of deep introspection? A heavenly piano rendition, never-seen-before VFX shots, and supersonic jet planes. To be preserved in museums, blindly adored by the populace, and graded in schools. The word ‘creativity’ is overused and thrown around loosely in small talk. This is extremely shocking considering that the word ‘creativity’ was popularized only in the 20th century and was not used by the Greeks or Romans. The intense pressure to be creative in every aspect of life is over boring and kills the whole idea. It puts one in a box and quantity overtakes quality. Perfectionism demanded by the capitalist-driven economy and the never-ending fantasies of the bourgeoisie are insane. “I hear again the teacher’s nasal New York accent telling us that this was master potters signature, a flaw he left in all his later works, believing that it made them more human and therefore more precious.”, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni states in one of her short stories ‘Meeting Mrinal’. Scrolling through stale content on Instagram and overbearing information from the media rots our minds.

In a way, all the highly esteemed awards for books, movies, or music are ludicrous and biased. Creativity does not exist in a situation of scrutiny or fear. It isn’t always about breaking archetypes or creating the ‘Apple’. Creativity can be mellow like hoarding underrated vinyl records or adorning your hands with cheap rubber bands.  Not to mention Elon Musk's ‘sink in’ meme. Creativity sustains life and makes it bearable. It can be a ‘rush of adrenaline’ moment or just a wholesome experience. At its core, creativity is an abstract and intangible notion.

Have any questions about creativity? We at Heart It Out would love to answer all your questions!

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