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Creativity
May. 31st, 2010 06:31 amI am "creative". I have a Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument thing to prove it - but a lot of people don't understand what that actually means in my case.
For simplicity, I will talk about two types of creativity: "Proactive" and "reactive".
Proactive creativity is more creativity for its own sake. It is the artistic kind, where inspiration takes you and you create things of beauty and wonder.
Reactive creativity is the kind I have, where one is presented with a problem (and possibly some tools) and needs to come up with a way to solve that problem.
When I tell people that I'm "creative", they assume it's the first kind. I've been told that I should be able to come up with fantastic, out-there ideas and pull brilliant new things from thin air. This is creates unrealistic expectations, because I'm not able to do that and certainly not on the spot.
On the other hand, if you say "we need to do this - how can we go about it?", I'm your girl. I can come up with novel ways of using things we already have. I can, depending on what is needed, come up with new resources, but that's not my main strength - I work with what I already know. I have.
If I don't *know* that we have an entire, massive supply of tangrams, I'm going to print and make my own. If I don't *know* that we have 3D models of shapes, I'm going to make my own or I'm going to look for other ways to get around the problem. I'm not simply going to assume that we have all these amazing resources at our fingertips - that would just be irresponsible.
Having this misconception of the nature of "creativity" be so common is extremely irritating for me. Knowing it's there makes me feel incredibly pressured to perform, which makes it even harder because this leads to performance anxiety.
Creativity is not just in the realm of art; it is also required in fields such as scientific research, engineering, and mathematics.
Without it, we would have nothing that is new, and nothing that is improved. It does not just mean making something brightly colourful or designed in an edgy, modern way; it also means coming up with that better mousetrap.
For simplicity, I will talk about two types of creativity: "Proactive" and "reactive".
Proactive creativity is more creativity for its own sake. It is the artistic kind, where inspiration takes you and you create things of beauty and wonder.
Reactive creativity is the kind I have, where one is presented with a problem (and possibly some tools) and needs to come up with a way to solve that problem.
When I tell people that I'm "creative", they assume it's the first kind. I've been told that I should be able to come up with fantastic, out-there ideas and pull brilliant new things from thin air. This is creates unrealistic expectations, because I'm not able to do that and certainly not on the spot.
On the other hand, if you say "we need to do this - how can we go about it?", I'm your girl. I can come up with novel ways of using things we already have. I can, depending on what is needed, come up with new resources, but that's not my main strength - I work with what I already know. I have.
If I don't *know* that we have an entire, massive supply of tangrams, I'm going to print and make my own. If I don't *know* that we have 3D models of shapes, I'm going to make my own or I'm going to look for other ways to get around the problem. I'm not simply going to assume that we have all these amazing resources at our fingertips - that would just be irresponsible.
Having this misconception of the nature of "creativity" be so common is extremely irritating for me. Knowing it's there makes me feel incredibly pressured to perform, which makes it even harder because this leads to performance anxiety.
Creativity is not just in the realm of art; it is also required in fields such as scientific research, engineering, and mathematics.
Without it, we would have nothing that is new, and nothing that is improved. It does not just mean making something brightly colourful or designed in an edgy, modern way; it also means coming up with that better mousetrap.
