The past few blogs I have talked about aspects that influence life through our perspective and how we engage the world.
Today I would like to focus a little deeper on creativity. Reason being is that there is a pre-conditioned idea that some people have about what it means to be creative.
Some people think that creativity is only for a select few people. I have been reading a book by Ellen J Langer, called “On Becoming an Artist” (Her picture is posted below). I really love how she approaches creativity with a wonderful fresh perspective.
Her standpoint is remarkable for me having been painting for over 10 years and studied in college. For me it has helped rebuild a new way of engaging creativity. I believe anyone can be creative wether they never pick up a brush or not. Wether they have no interest musically, or any other creative field.
What I have learned is that creativity is a way of doing the everyday things we do in a fresh and lively new way. To approach our actions/activities in ways that are engaging principally for us. Ellen speaks about experiments she conducted with people that played in the orchestra who performed a piece of music in front of an audience.
They were asked to first play as best as they possibly could, to out-shine all previous performances. Secondly they were asked to play the same piece of music but only this time they were asked to play a little different, to make the piece of music unique and special in some way for themselves.
They audience were later asked which piece they preferred and 80% said they preferred the second piece. The orchestra were asked which piece they preferred. They unanimously preferred the second piece. Both the audience and orchestra felt more engaged by the creative application utilized in the second method.
What I understand is that how we do something and make it interesting for ourselves makes us not only more effective but creative. It impacts the world more powerfully as a result. Ellen seems to say that mindful presence is integral to creativity. Her angle on it is that when we are present we are less likely to make mistakes and our ability to respond to life becomes more powerful.
She talks about how when we are engaging old habits and believe that we are incapable of being as successful as someone else we might compare ourselves to, we are simply operating on past conditioning/old beliefs.
Mindful presence, Ellen says is not about running these old patterns that keep us limited. It’s about living for the now, engaging what is here and working with that.
Attending to what is directly in front of me is a liberating experience. Yet my mind often likes to make excuses and struggles at times to just relax into the moment. I’m sure you can relate. It’s as though being comfortable in my own skin was a big journey in itself. So what would it be like to approach each moment mindfully and act creatively in our day? Strangely enough for me as I have begun to attend to tasks that sit in front of me and abandon old habits new opportunities unfold. Job opportunities present themselves. Time seems like a friend rather than an enemy and I am able to get more things done. I feel more optimistic.
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| Goethe by Andy Warhol |
Do you wonder how you could do what you do in your day in a more interesting way? How would that change things? Would it be more creative for you? What if you were to pick up a brush and paint an image simply for the exploration factor and whatever else that may bring? What would that feel like? What if you were to write a piece of poetry just because you chose to and gave it a go?
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
– Goethe
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