I recently attended a meeting that was supposed to generate new ideas for rejuvenating an older product that had lost much of its luster and was fading fast in the market place. I am afraid I was not a good participate since halfway through the meeting I started thinking about the idea of creativity and what it was really about.
I was in a room occupied by very intelligent people, all reasonably accomplished or they would not have been there. They all seemed very focused on finding a creative solution that would bring this product back to life.
I became fascinated how each person viewed and perceived the creative process. Instead of keeping my mind on the subject, the following thoughts became pervasive, and I could not purge them from my consciousness. After a few minutes of frustration, I gave in and here is what I began to think about.
It occurred to me that creativity worked on many different levels. For some, the few, they were meant to create. For others such as myself, we are the synthesizers. Our creativity, if that is what we choose to call it, is to interpret and understand what has been done. Someone has to put the discoveries into the context of understanding. That is the role of teacher, to bring it all together in some understandable form. We are to make the parts a whole - that is our job.
This always begs the question, what is creativity? Does it only apply to activities that bring new discoveries into being - ideas or things that have never been seen or contemplated before? If the definition of creativity is to be this narrow, few of us are truly creative. Can the synthesizers be truly creative? For our benefit let’s hope so.
If we do our work well, we bring into relevance and understanding what has been discovered. For us, this is “the new,” this is our discovery, our creativity. When I use the world “teacher” I am not only referring to those who toil in the classroom, but also to those who mentor individuals within their given communities.
Within each of us is the power of discovery. It is a force within consciousness that we all possess. It is fueled by curiosity and the ability to be aware. One caveat seems to exist for each of us and that is the power and limit of our natural curiosity, since curiosity is the fuel that drives the need for making the pieces fit.
If we allow this process to exists, it becomes clear that this is a natural development of our ability to think and relate to our environment. It starts the minute we open our eyes for the first time. Even though the infant has no sense of place or time, each new life begins by trying to understand the world they are entering. Obviously, they are not fully conscious of the process, but simple observation of a new born child can see that the process of trying to understand has started.
So, if this is such a natural process, regardless of whether you are truly a creative person or a synthesizer, what happens to us as we grow older that allows such a natural process to become so stilted?
Why has simply being observant and to the best of our ability speaking out in a clear and unassuming way become so difficult. A child has no such problem. They simply blurt out what they see without filters and without malice. For better or worse we are getting the truth as they perceive it. It seems the first principle of the creative process is to be authentic.
Granted, unlike the child, we have to be civil in how we phrase our words, but this is a process that we learn very early, and it should not be an obstacle that prevents us from sharing our best work honestly and directly.
As to the meeting, there was no magic this time. It seems like all good things and people, they do end. And such was the fate of this wonderful product that had served so well. I must confess, I have witnessed the same result with so many good people I have had the privilege to know.
Frank John Franco