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What is the Nature of Creativity: Child’s Play, of Course

Blog, On Writing, What I'm Thinking

It’s always fascinating to hear what acclaimed artists have to say about the nature of creativity, where they get their ideas and their inspiration. Renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, in his documentary Strangers to Music, about his Silk Road Project, tells a story about a young boy informing his father that he wants to be a musician when he grows up.

“l’m sorry to tell you this, my son,” says the father, “but you can’t do both.”

This wonderful story makes clear how difficult it is to be creative without a sense of childlike wonder.

Yo-Yo Ma talks about finding music between the notes. Writers of song lyrics talk about seeing the words in the music. There are innumerable stories about sculptors envisioning a figure within a piece of granite, or removing the excess material to reveal the shape inside. Some artists prepare to paint by drawing or painting without thought, to detach the mind from the hand.  Some writers allow their characters to speak through them; others feel as if their hands do all the work. Many artists emerge from sleep with fully formed ideas, and it’s certainly true that leaving an idea to ferment overnight often brings a new focus in the morning.   

In all these examples, the artist is somehow separating the creative process from the restrictions of conscious thought. It is as if trying to create using our rational thought process is an exercise in futility. Rational thought organizes and stratifies data, tries to make sense of it, rejects anything that seems far-fetched or outside the narrow boundaries of what’s acceptable. This is the antithesis of creativity, in which, like children, we need to let imagination take wing, envision the improbable, combine unlikely shapes and clashing colors, come up with irrational images that nevertheless create a vivid picture.   

As children we dance unhampered by social norms, we lie in the grass on summer afternoons and imagine the swirling shapes of clouds as animals or monsters. Cloud-watching should be a required activity for grownups, too.


Photo: Nuvole/Flickr 2.0 CC