Defining Creativity

I don’t know about any of you, but sometimes being creative has made me feel like a bit of an oddball, a misfit. Not that I minded of course.

As I’ve grown older I’ve come to appreciate that feeling. I see the world in a way that most people don’t. I see the good and the bad, the blurred lines and those that are well defined.

To me, the world is filled with endless possibilities. That can daunting in some ways as well.

Recently, I was told to take a personality test. While I find them interesting, I’ve always taken them with a grain of salt. How can you know me from 25 questions?

This time the test referred to me as a paradox, a complicated individual. For a moment I was irritated. Complicated? Definitely. A paradox? I’ve always thought I was straightforward, honest.

Deeper in the description there was a quote from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that stuck out, “If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude...they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadows, inconsistency, even chaos - and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.”

I don’t expect everyone to agree but as an author I was struck by the idea that a creative person is a multitude. Seeing the world through different lenses allows me to create unique characters who experience life in ways far different from my own life.

Creativity can be difficult to define. While I find the quote enlightening it still doesn’t define what it means to be creative to me. I suppose that’s why we create art at all, to further understand ourselves and how we interact with the world around us.