Creativity in Our Ordinary Mundane: Delights of the Ordinary No. 19

The equinox has shifted. It is now November. A little late in the autumn. A little early for winter.

Somewhere in the middle.

Every so often this middle is the toughest tussock because we have walked enough not to return, yet have to walk enough to reach our yuletide.

Each week when I sit down by the window to write you letters from my fragile foliage of wisdom I am always riddled in the middle. Walking a path but not have reached yet! As a creative writer who has envisioned writing letters to you, my creative process is eternally unfinished just as John Lennon of Beatles says, “complaining about how hard it is to write or how much I suffer when I’m writing…I always think there’s nothing there, it’s shit, it’s no good, it’s not coming out, this is garbage… and even if it does come out, I think, “What the hell is it anyway?””

So when these timid letters reach you in the dawn or dusk or in the warm mid-noon, find them as the expanse for you to think beyond the regularities of life that are tagged as boring everyday routines. Let these letters be a reminder for you to spend a little time in some form of ethical creativity, empowering you to outgrow the laboured chores of life, beyond and above. With these newsletters I hope to become your companion, in a way, to write to you with much love on subjects like art, history, culture and life, coaxing you to make some deep meditative usurps in your typical back-breaking, rocket-speed life.

Now getting back to creativity!

Creativity is the use of imagination or ideas to invent something.

What We Found About Creativity?

Prior to the 20th century, it was theorised that creative people came from troubled, conflicting families and their brokenness led them to create something. Then somewhere in the late 20th century the Hungarian-born American psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi examined more than ninety men and women who either produced works that were publicly recognized as creative or impacted or affected their culture in some significant way.

His finding showed that these creatives had, for the most part, “experienced normal childhoods and grew up in families that provided them with a solid set of values.”

This research also identified that creative folks were quite unsatisfied about their school experiences because for them the more crucial learning occurred outside their classrooms. They attributed their creative muscles to their mentors and significant teachers who were around them. Csikszentmihalyi’s study showed that many creative people had followed unconventional paths to their careers.

What was most notable was the way they grabbed upon whatever opportunities and dared resistance and constraints that crossed their way. In general, they shaped not-so-ideal circumstances to walk on till the end and showed little evidence of being stopped by events they could not control.

It appeared that the excitement and satisfaction of pursuing their goals motivated these individuals to surmount barriers and persist through difficulties.

The great tests of faith don’t usually happen in dramatic moments with dozens of people watching what your next move will be. They come on an ordinary Tuesday morning, standing before a regular discipline or task that has become lifeless, tired, and boring. Small decisions to persevere in the face of weariness and discouragement make a lifetime of faithfulness. But it doesn’t appear to be so at the time. The reward isn’t visible. But it’s on the horizon.

Father Jack King

Type of Creativity

Neuropsychologist Arne Dietrich created a four-square matrix for types of creativity. It may not be the only way to see creativity yet a helpful way to know all of us fall in some category or other.

• Deliberate and cognitive creativity arises from hard work and putting in long hours in a particular area like Thomas Edison.
• Deliberate and emotional creativity arrives from sitting quietly and reflecting on their situation and then reaching a eureka, also called as the ah-ha moment!
• Spontaneous and cognitive creativity primarily matures in stages, taking its own time. You may be struck by a problem for some days and then come back sometime later to solve it.
• Spontaneous and emotional creativity has emotional (from the amygdala) creative moments that seem like an epiphany.

Why Create in Constraints?

Constraints always seem suffocating, stifling and unfair; “like running a relay race with your ankles tied together.” Despite what they appear to be, constraints can be mightily making us resourceful, inventive, and more grateful for the things that we are denied in the process. 

What would have made of us if life buttressed and backed us with ampleness, no hurdles, magnificent aromas to smell and endless colours to touch?

May be extremely sufficient for us, not to understand gluttony and greed – the lowly gravestones of this earthly life we are living! The lack of things is seen as they would hold us back, make us more diminutive – but instead it can become a launch pad to re-examine our priorities, making us more decisive and laser-focused in creating.

Thus, creativity can be a delight when it is practised in margins, within constraints. Like having certain deadlines, future goals, and limited resources. To let the art (writing in my case) sit in a capacity and context. Father Jack King, says, “If you have no vision for something that is good, true, and beautiful, persevering through adversity and failure wouldn’t make any sense. But it’s a passionate vision for creating or enjoying beauty that drives you to dogged determination in the midst of adversity. That’s why artists persist in their craft. They long to see the song, poem, or painting hidden in their souls come into being. It’s why parents endure long, difficult days and sleepless nights with their children…”

Our creative tools may differ but we are all creatives in one way or another:

As creatives, most of us are used to seeing creativity in words, art or music. But then there were creatives like Orville and Wilbur Wright, famously known as the Wright Brothers, who found creativity in an attempt to fly like a bird, and then later succeeded in inventing an aeroplane. Before the Wright brothers took their first flight in 1903, other creatives made copious attempts to make bird machines and fly. The good old kites, hot air balloons, airships, and gliders remained our artificial wings until then!

It might sometimes feel that life is significantly harder and meaningless in the way things go and the bearings devour us, but honestly, the creative processes are blurred in these regular specs of life. Creativity is dealt with in its nuances, making it into a flow, in our vulnerabilities and in most circumstances not knowing the end.

What are you creating? A happy family, babies, a home, relations, a new recipe, a macrame, a painting, an origami or just silly long and short shadows under the sun? Whether we hold a brush in our hand type words on the keyboard, or make several failed attempts to bake a perfect loaf of bread, we are all creatives.

So do not leave in the middle, when you have walked enough, but walk a little more so that you will find your warm-lit home in the Winterland.

Creative people are among you and me. Moreover, you and me.Subscribe

Now to my weekly delightful internet roundups:

To learn and draw: Grant Snider, the creator of Incidental Comics, invited all his readers to join him in his second annual Poetry Comics Month. He also shared how to make poetry comic in one of his posts. You can click here to find some easy ways to create poetry comics! (Fun for kids too.)This seems a perfect chance for me to create in the limitations of 2 boxes. You don’t have to but I am trying to create within constraints. The result is below.

To cook: Try this super impressive miky brownie recipe. It is fun to find that different cooking methods can change our food in so many drastic yet magical ways.

To paint: The amusing part is that AI is entering our ecology pretty fast. This AI-enabled ‘Paint With Music’ from Google converts your doodling into music. It’s playful and perfect fun for our creativity to be started. It is super amusing!

To ponder: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 

To discover: If you like exploring new thoughts outside your creative bubble and need a respite from the platitude of your social media feed then you are like me. The Sample is a newsletter-finding portal which is designed to boost independent writers about whom you haven’t heard already. You can set a few topics you’re interested in, and then each day The Sample picks a different newsletter to send you. When you get one you like, you can subscribe to the author’s newsletter in a single click. Easy as pie. Sign up here.

To end:

Creation by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The impulse of all love is to create.
God was so full of love, in his embrace
He clasped the empty nothingness of space,
And low! the solar system! High in state
The mighty sun sat, so supreme and great
With this same essence, one smile of its face
Brought myriad forms of life forth; race on race
From insects up to men.

Through love, not hate,
All that is grand in nature or in art
Sprang into being. He who would build sublime
And lasting works, to stand the test of time
Must inspiration draw from his full heart.
And he who loveth widely, well and much,
The secret holds of the true master touch.

Leaving you with some warmed-up winters and brightly lit life.

– Anugrah

Delights of the Ordinary

Note: To you who have been my diligent reader, I am highly grateful for the time and room that you give me in your heart. For in some way or another letting me know that you are echoing along. So, if you ever feel like dropping in a message or a comment, do not hesitate. We all can only thrive in people, among them, living with some frictions and making some peace. We can be those ordinary creative beings who can change the world. You and me.