Creativity Essay
What Is Creativity? Creativity Explained
by Silvia Hartmann
What Is Creativity? Creativity Explained | Definition Of Creativity | Creativity, Brain & Mind | Creativity, Insanity & Madness | Opening the Doors To Creativity | Creative Questions - Taking Charge Of Creativity | Art Solutions & Creativity | Art & Creativity As A Transpersonal Process | Creativity Explored, Creativity Exercises, Creativity Training
You may have heard many a definition of creativity, taken a creativity test or have studied creativity research, but where does all of that leave us in trying to understand our own processes of creativity?
Here, I would offer you a completely NEW, simple and manageable explanation on the origins of creativity and how we get to use this marvellous function of the human mind to have more fun and find creative solutions to our own problems.
First of all, let's remember that although we use the word "creativity" all the time, it is not something you can put in the boot of your car or sell in a can - it is a nominalisation, and that means it was taken from a verb which describes an activity and frozen into this nebulous noun.
The verb at the bottom of the well is, "to create".
In essence, this means "to make something", and that's our first stop on re-defining creativity.
- 1. You can't be "creative" unless you are DOING SOMETHING - CREATIVELY.
This is really important to understand because the word is so terribly misused all the time.
People will say, "Hey look, there's Bob. He's a creative genius!"
What they mean by that is that Bob is creating all the time, but that's totally untrue.
Right now, Bob is sitting on a park bench, eating a hamburger and thinking about his shopping.
He is no more "creative" here than you or me at this time.
However, later on, Bob might go into his studio or his office, his lab or his bedroom and there he might work on his latest "creation" - and only when he does THAT, is he actually "being creative".
So remember this one:
Being creative is something THAT YOU DO when you engage in the act of MAKING SOME THING.
This brings us to the next step, namely that to ...
- 2. CREATE SOME THING with a purpose is what it means to be creative.
That's another place where people really lose it on this topic.
Rolling around and spouting nonsense insanely is really not what creativity is about - it is about creating SOME THING.
That could be some thing that solves a problem, has an effect on society or on reality in some way, or on yourself.
This "act of creation" is the reason why people get creativity confused with "innovation", "originality" or "inventions".
These things may or may not happen; they are an after the fact judgement on the product or process that came about as some person created some THING.
So that gives us Creativity Rule No. 3:
- 3. In order to be creative, you do NOT have to "invent something new".
Imagine this. There are two geniuses, on the opposite side of the world, and BOTH AT THE SAME TIME have a creative breakthrough on some thing that affects reality.
One may be a millisecond behind the other - does that mean one is creative and a genius, and the other isn't?
Of course not!
You can re-invent the wheel as many times as you like and you can really be completely creative in doing so - if your society didn't know about wheels, what else would that be?!
Creativity and innovation are TWO SEPARATE TOPICS, that's very important to understand.
A lot of people mistakenly think that when they explore their creativity, they WILL have to come up with something no-one, out of all the billions upon billions of people on this planet in all the hundreds of thousands of years of human history has EVER thought of.
That's NOT creativity!
Creativity is when a little kid works out for themselves how to get at a toy on a high shelf with a stick.
Happens to virtually EVERY kid, ever - but each time, it is THEIR CREATIVITY, their marvellous experience and their REWARD.
For a long time, we had the concept of the "unconscious mind" as the source of our creativity (and our madness and insanity!).
I have researched this all my life and offer a different paradigm altogether on the topic.
What I say is that the so called unconscious mind is an ENERGY BASED computation system that is natural to human beings.
I call it the Energy Mind.
You could think of it as a super-advanced organic computer that produces data in the form of "Energy Streams" - but the trouble is that these energy streams need to be interpreted and translated into images and visions, sounds and feelings for us to be CONSCIOUSLY AWARE of some parts of their contents.
Our conscious mind, which is what we are trained to use from the word go by schools and talk based learning, thinking about things in terms of words and pictures, has become functionally detached from these energy data streams and doesn't receive them any longer - unless your drunk or dreaming, or you are in hypnosis or you have taken drugs so that these STREAMS OF INFORMATION once more can flow through the whole mind/brain system AND can be consciously observed.
It is my conclusion that we "tap into our creativity" when we let these energy data streams flow into our conscious mind to give us the information that CAN'T BE FOUND IN BOOKS ON THE SHELF, but come from our energy mind's computations ABOUT ACTUAL REALITY instead.
When there are severe injuries in the energy system, the flow of data from the energy mind will reflect this.
We are talking all the nightmare scenarios that have frightened the pants off of humans since they started to live in insane and UNNATURAL environments that structurally cause pain, injury and damage to the energy system.
Nightmares, night terrors and "dark night of the soul" style judgement day visions (hallucinations), imaginings, dreams, sensations are ALL simply feed back devices to alert us in consciousness that something has gone badly wrong with our energy systems.
Unfortunately, this has been totally misunderstood and mis-interpreted across the ages.
The energy mind got a bad reputation for being the "repository" of all things unpleasant and frightening.
***** As long as the energy system is in a state of high disturbance, a person's visions MUST BE DISTURBING likewise, in a direct cause and effect.
There is another important aspect to this.
With most people who got stuck inside their conscious mind, disconnected from the power of the visions and experiences, understandings and sheer depth of that data stream from the energy mind, a huge wave of distress signals is usually the first time they EVER make contact with that flow of energy.
It is a FANTASTIC sensation - and no matter how depressing, scary or frightening, it is completely ADDICTIVE because as a process, it is something we knew we were hungering for for a long time indeed.
So a lot of people who want to be "creative artists" will EXACERBATE their own pains and injuries by stirring them up IN ORDER TO REACH THAT LEVEL OF DATA STREAMING again, breach the threshold of the conscious mind.
They think that you get there by pain - because that's how THEY got there in the first place.
It's an easy mistake to make, and it's deadly mistake to make, indeed.
**** If you exacerbate the pain of the energy mind to ENCOURAGE STRONGER AND MORE PROFOUND DATA STREAM COMMUNICATIONS, you WILL enter into a feedback loop that leads directly into insanity.
This is the "genius and madness go hand in hand" problem.
And it is simple to solve.
If you are afraid that you have that ability to stream visions but they are unpleasant and frightening and you have the sense that you are losing control of them, the answer is to HEAL YOUR ENERGETIC INJURIES TO CALM THE DATA STREAM.
If and when you can do that, what you will find is that your energy mind will send DIFFERENT DATA - beautiful, of radiant clarity, uplifting and healing, joyous, holy and delightful.
When you stream THAT kind of data instead, or at least stream all sorts of different data for different occasions (rather than ONLY going for the dark night of the soul, each and every time!), not only will you HEAL YOURSELF in the process, but also your works of art will NOT cause injury to others who perceive it, either.
Managing your creativity is the challenge, but it is possible and actually a lot easier than you thought it was.
**** For more information and practical techniques on the topic, See The Enchanted World (Free!) and Oceans Of Energy, EmoTrance 1.
The No. 1 obstacle to creativity and flow is FEAR.
Fear creates a vortex of disturbance, and I really don't think there's any fear greater than the usual "fear of insanity" that befalls people the instance you mention that you want to "unleash their creativity".
People do have blockages to creativity and to allowing the flow on creative material to stream to them directly from the energy mind, and often these are very severe.
They range from
- near phobic (or really phobic!) responses that have come about because of nightmares they've experienced, or perhaps a bad drug trip or such and that cause a REFLEXIVE SHUTTING DOWN on the energy mind's data streams;
- erroneous beliefs, old wife tails and prejudices about the nature of creativity and what would happen if they engaged fully with their energy mind;
- and most of all, being completely TERRIFIED of losing control of one's thoughts, actions, emotions, life.
The key factor in managing creativity is therefore to teach people techniques and have them play games which will INCREASE their conscious control over when, and what kind of data streams are being CALLED FOR and received.
Remember that the old idea of artists being possessed by creative demons and burning up in the fires of their own hells, and the merrier they burn and the louder they scream, the more ARTISTIC their creativity is (!!) is completely erroneous and simply witch hunt propaganda to frighten folk away from USING THEIR CREATOR GIVEN MIND.
Goethe was no raving lunatic, and neither were Shakespeare and Leonardo Davinci.
These people KNEW how to handle managing their creativity in such a way that
They never lost control of it;
They could direct their creativity and use it AT WILL;
AND they could turn it off if they wanted a night out with the wife.
This is not at all difficult, either.
What we need to do is to not just open up whole dams and let ourselves be swept away by a tsunami of stored up energetic data, but to take samples - to ASK FOR VERY SPECIFIC DATA DELIVERY.
If I was to ask you to remember "your worst nightmare", and then to produce a painting/sculpture/photograph/essay/poem/etc.etc.etc. based on this, you would be able to do that.
It would be a hideous (painting/sculpture ...etc.etc.etc.), of course, because your worst nightmare is a very disturbing thing, undoubtedly coming from a system in you that is in high disturbance and calling your attention so that it may receive some healing or resolution.
Something that the "mad artists rolling around in their own agony and filth" never seem to do, is to ask A DIFFERENT KIND OF QUESTION.
I could ask you to remember "your best ever dream" and then produce a (etc.etc.etc.) BASED ON THAT INSTEAD.
And you could do this, and your work of art that would result would be of a very different flavour altogether.
This is the absolute 101 of taking control of your own creative processes, of OWNING YOUR CREATIVITY instead of being at the mercy of some unpredictable madness, do you understand?
Essentially, creativity, or "streaming data from your energy mind and then acting upon this information to create some thing", is a CONTENT FREE PROCESS.
You ask for streams of pain, and you GET streams of pain.
You ask for more, deeper, harder, faster - and you get EXTREMES of pain!
What seems to be entirely forgotten is that the artist is NOT a glove puppet, but a HUMAN BEING who is supposed to be in charge of their processes and output, and they are supposed to have A PURPOSE in what they do, why they do it, and how they do that.
Instead of asking you about dreams, I could ask you about numinous experiences. I could ask you to remember a time when you KNEW what it meant to love someone. Some thing will come to you and it doesn't really matter if you are any good with brush, bronze or typewriter, ANYONE who HONESTLY tries to represent something like THAT will be creating ORIGINAL, CREATIVE ART - because it comes straight from our energy mind and wasn't constructed artificially by your conscious mind.
These things, these EXPERIENCES, they have power, and emotion - they are ALIVE and they are completely UNIQUE, because only YOU have lived YOUR life, were there, thought, felt, experienced THOSE things, and are now taking them outside of yourself so others can get a glimpse of what you have learned.
Questions are endless, and the power of the artist to ask these questions and receive the answers, and THEN make them into some thing to SHARE THIS WITH OTHERS is what creativity is, and why it is so highly prized and paid for so very well.
What questions would YOU like to ask of your own self and stream the answers to share with the world?
Most artists never get that far. They just paint their own pathology, over and over again, and because they are dealing with streamed material, THINK that all that pain is creativity.
But that's just one thousands of one percent of what a true artist can do.
Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" and painting the answer in words or music or colours, over and over again, we might ask instead, "Give me something that will heal me ..." and wait for the stream to present something.
That is THE most extraordinary moment of turning away from old stuck "pain screaming" and beginning on a whole new exploration of the processes of creativity, and the PURPOSES of creativity.
When this happens, we bridge the gap between "the artist as a mere commentator" and get into the realms of "the artist as a shaman" - and the artist then has control over what questions they ask, and how they present the answers that they have received.
What questions would YOU ask of your own creativity, of your energy mind?
What contributions would YOU like to make to the world, what legacy would you like to leave in pictures, sounds, in systems and structures that YOU CREATED?
"Give me something that will make the people who see/hear/touch/use this feel ..."
Feel what?
Happier? More hopeful? Less sad? Less angry?
But as an artist, this is up to you.
You can CHOOSE to choose differently. If you want people to feel even worse than they already do, disgusted, more angry, more desperate, that TOO is in YOUR POWER as the energy mind sends its streams of HONEST ANSWERS.
Art is in essence TRANSPERSONAL in nature.
That means that it is designed to be interacted with NOT just by one single person, but by many people.
If this was not the case, you could stream your symphony whilst you lie in a chair, and you would never bother to try and write it down and have it be played by a huge orchestra for OTHER PEOPLE TO SHARE.
Once an artist has overcome their own personal pathology to a degree and they can finally think BEYOND THEMSELVES and get to consider their audiences across time and space as well, we are engaged in a fantastic transpersonal process where the artist gets to pass on messages, solutions, insights, experiences in a truly fabulous way.
Each person IS an artist.
You can't be alive and NOT have an energy mind that will send you the answers to whatever questions you put in.
Sadly, only very few people USE THIS extraordinary capacity of the human mind, and that's not the way its meant to be.
Imagine a world where people would ask questions and receive answers that WE would never thought to ask.
Imagine how they in turn would look to your questions and answers and be ENRICHED just the same.
That's what creativity is, and that's what it is for - not for the chosen few, but for EVERYONE.
To conclude this short essay on the processes of creativity, and to sincerely invite YOU to begin to explore your creativity in whole new directions and discover fantastic and amazing things along the way, I want to say a few words about creativity exercises and creativity training.
Creativity training isn't training, it is RE-TRAINING ourselves to do just two simple things.
1. To ask a question of ourselves; and
2. To open up enough to receive the answer.
Creativity and the streaming data from the energy mind (previously known as the "unconscious mind") is like water flowing down a hill. You can't "train" water, but you can channel it. It is also like blood - it is there, whether you know this or not, whether you like this or not, because the functioning of the energy mind is a part of our bodies, our creator given totalities.
What we need to do is to practice and undo old entrainments and the mad ideas we used to have about the processes of creativity.
It is EASY to ask ourselves a question and receive the answer, as easy as it is for me to say to you, "Remember a time when you saw a dramatic sky that was like a symphony? What did it look like? What were the colours? Tell me about it ..." - AND FOR YOU TO ANSWER MY QUESTION, as best you can.
Do this every day and the streams that answer your call become richer, deeper, more satisfying, every more astonishing, ever more wonderful.
In the process of this active use of your creativity, you will LEARN about your creativity. You will learn how it works, become more comfortable and assured as you begin to really UNDERSTAND how you create the answers to your questions, and you remain absolutely IN CONTROL of these processes of creativity, all the way.
YOU choose where to take this; YOU are in charge through the questions you ask before the stream begins the answer.
With this control at the beginning, you will find that all the many fears and phobias of "unconsciously generated material" simply evaporates, as you begin to understand the workings of your energy mind and learn to USE IT for your own purposes in free will.
And that makes you an artist by definition, and sets you on a life long road of total fascination and so much potential for discovery, delight and EVOLUTION, it is absolutely priceless.
Long live CREATIVITY and all those who PRACTICE it!
Silvia Hartmann
24. 07. 05
What Is Creativity? Creativity Explained | Definition Of Creativity | Creativity, Brain & Mind | Creativity, Insanity & Madness | Opening the Doors To Creativity | Creative Questions - Taking Charge Of Creativity | Art Solutions & Creativity | Art & Creativity As A Transpersonal Process | Creativity Explored, Creativity Exercises, Creativity Training
What Is Creativity? Creativity Explained - © Silvia Hartmann 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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