I’ll have a plate of Creativity with a side order of Passion.
I wrote this post for another blog, but I think it’s perfectly applicable here. Enjoy.
Sometimes I hear people comment that they’re just not that creative. I often wonder what makes them think that. Why would anyone be comfortable living with that idea? As a creative person who works with graphics all day, I’m here to tell you that everyone is, and has always had the potential to be creative, and I’m going to tell you why.
Creativity is not just pretty graphics or designs. Creativity is more than that. It’s multi-layered and multi-levelled. It’s relative, and we all can do it. Maybe we can’t all create pretty pictures, but that doesn’t mean you are not a creative person.
Each of us has heard a quote where at least one person has remarked “I have to write that down”. That’s because language can be beautiful. Words and phrases that are strung together like pearls on a string can be memorable if done with care. They roll off your tongue like they were meant to be together.
We’ve all read literature where the author’s abilities in word-smithing made the material enjoyable to read. Advertisers have known this for a long time. It’s called copy-writing. They use it to write text for products and services that draws consumers in to read more and to buy the products. Since the forties, the big deal was writing slogans because they were bite-sized consumer information that were written to be memorable. Sometime, more often than not, they used humour to generate silly sayings like “where’s the beef?”, because as long as it was memorable, the consumers would buy. It didn’t even have to be grammatically correct.
Sometimes these phrases were so powerful they actually became part of the cultural lexicon. Here are some examples: “Don’t leave home without it” (American Express), “It keeps going, going and going” (Energizer), and “Good to the last drop” (Maxwell House). Slogans waxed and waned like the tides in the ocean, some lasting a generation or until events made them distasteful and others spanning multiple generations.
Language is like that. A well-written book is a another example of when thoughts and ideas are conveyed in such a succinctly perfect way that it’s more than just pleasurable to read. A well-crafted story is a thing of beauty. The point is that language, specifically writing, is an art form. Anyone can do it and with a little care and common sense, produce something that is memorable. It’s also the reason why some people, such as some politicians and presidents of large firms hire specially trained people who write many of the words that come out of their mouths. They recognize the power of words and want what they say to always be memorable and have some level of importance. That not exactly creativity, but they do recognize the word-smithing abilities of the people they hire.
Art form aside, creativity doesn’t have to involve art at all. Take the lowly potato chip. This now commonplace little demon of our waistlines was invented in 1853 by chef George Crum at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York. Crum created the snack in reaction to a customer who continuously sent his fried potatoes back complaining that they weren’t crunchy enough. Crum sliced the potatoes as thin as possible in reaction, fried and salted them. His customer loved them and “Saratoga Chips” were born. Crum’s solution was a stroke of high-cholesterol genius and it was his creativity that got him there.
Let’s say you work with numbers seven days a week in a cramped cubicle on a crowded floor and when the five o’clock bell rings you can’t wait to get home. You’re not rushing to get out because you hate your job, but because you can’t wait to get home and work on your garden. Creativity doesn’t have to be what you do with your time, but the passion you feel for it. You could be a horrible gardener who unceremoniously kills everything you touch, much to the horror of your neighbours. But that passion you feel, that fire in your belly to get going, that excitement is a form of creativity.
You could be a golfer who has one particular shot that you’ve perfected, and everything else you struggle with. You could be a golfer who is an amazing putter. It could be the one shot that you can cut through like “budd’ah”, but you couldn’t chip your way out of a paper bag. Some might argue that’s just skill, but I would counter that it was your passion for the game that fuelled you to invest the time to perfect that shot. It was your creativity that helped you find the solution that worked best for you.
Passion learning is something many of us do outside of work. It’s a yearning to learn something unrelated to your day job, a personal pleasure if you wish. We’ve all heard of people who have taken cooking courses after work. Passion learning is directly connected to creativity. You do it not because you have to, but because you want to. That yearning is the start of the fire that will become a passion. You don’t have to be great at whatever you do, just have the desire. That’s also creativity.
Here’s another example: You’ve just invited a guy you swear looks like Fred Flintstone into your home to fix your fuse box. Fred stays an hour and a half and charges you what can only be described as “close to your mortgage”. You might be freaking at your bill, but what you may not realize is that, according to his co-worker Barney Rubble, the work that Fred just did for you, to any other electrician, is in itself a work of art. To you, you can’t see that level of workmanship because you are not an electrician. It’s something that is outside your scope of aesthetics. Sometimes, you can’t see creativity when it’s right in front of you because creativity is relative.
Forget the graphics and pretty pictures. Take a closer look at your own life and I will bet a mortgage payment, you ARE a creative person. Take a look at your accomplishments in your work life and I would expect you to see much of that was driven by your passion, and it was your creativity that got you there.