creativity

Creativity And Rebellion

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

A simple work of fiction with a different hero or heroine can inspire legions of people to realize they can change the world.  A few dull economic statistics, presented in a new format, can reveal powerful truths and shake a business’. An eloquent speech creates an uprising that brings down a dictator. Creativity breaks us out of traps of ruts and changes the world; Creativity is rebellion.

All creativity is rebellion.  Creativity challenges and makes things anew – it is different, if only minutely, from what is known, a rebellion against what is.  Because creativity is change from the known, that is why it has such an impact.  It’s why we are enthralled by some new thing; creativity lets you see the world differently, experience possibilities that are new, think that which you never thought.

Every creative act is a bit of rebellion – perhaps a friendly one – but a rebellion nonetheless.  The power of creativity is not just in its differences, however, but because creativity is about connection.

Creativity is connection.  Even if it shocks or is unexpected, creativity relies on known ideas for context and meaning, much as a book relies on known words, or a tale shocks as it is different than familiar ones.  Creativity is a change grounded in known reality, with other concepts and ideas as signposts and guides to its meaning.

This is why Creativity shocks and delights – it is new yet is relatable.  The newness becomes part of the familiar.

Creativity builds new connections.  The creative is the idea seen in a new light, the religion reformed, a mirror-image of an old story.  It is accessible, but because it lets one see things differently, it creates whole new ways to understand the world.  New connections between ideas, new associations among people, new feelings occur when we’re exposed to the creative.

Creativity draws people deeper into the world with what it shows us. These new connections can make a new, creative idea even more true than past truths.  Because it connects to the known, yet looks at things differently, it creates a powerful web of understanding.  Truth is based on how ideas align together, and a creative thought or work can align powerfully, moreso than old, worn-out, smaller truths.

Creativity lasts. Because it is so connected yet new, creativity creates powerful changes, and these changes echo throughout time. The most powerful creative acts start with the known, introduce the new, and provide seed and soil for even greater connections and associations.

A rebel is a truly creative person, and rightly feared as the dictator and despot never know what they may do or where they’re coming from.  For all they know, the creative person has planted seeds unseen, maybe in the heads of those that hate them and would control them.  For all they know people are thinking in new ways, ways they can’t control.

To keep creating is to keep rebelling.

– Steve

Creativity And Freedom

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

Creativity cannot be separated from Freedom; it is the source of it and the result of it.  Share it, encourage it, understand it.

Creativity allows people to think in new ways that both liberates and maintains liberty. The creative can dream around problems, finding new solutions when none were apparent.  The creative are harder to constrain by despots, as they have the tools to out-think oppressors.  The hopeful tyrants cannot face down dreams they know nothing about.

The despot worries in his throne room, heart racing.  Someone is out there who can find solutions, communicate in new ways, invent new treasons.  The despot fears you and doesn’t even know your name.

Creativity strengthens the people that treasure it.  Society is stronger for the news ideas the creative people bring.  The imaginative see dead ideas and infuse them with new life, resurrecting the lost things of value. Creative people can see the foundations of society and connect them to their innovations, joining past and present, the new and the renewed.

A single shining inspiration in your mind and old ideas come alive, history is connected, and you can see how ancient thoughts and new dreams come together.  Centuries and aeons link together in new strengths and old wisdom.

Creativity strengthens relations among people allowing them to support each other.  The creative are open to new relations among people because they can dream.  The creative find new connections among people, building alliances that resist tyranny.  The creative discover new ways to understand others and cooperate in ways unforeseen.  A web of connections and associations and alliances makes people all the more resilient.

Those that create are your allies, and a single conversation can create a year’s worth of dreams.  A moment’s pause lets you see everyone new.  You reach out to make new friends easy.  What tyrant doesn’t fear a web of collaborators who can out-dream them?

Creativity should be encouraged and shared among people.  To arm people with creativity is to give them tools to find meaning and protect themselves and others.  To share with other people builds connections and camaraderie, creating alliances that maintain the society. The sharing and encouragement of creativity is a measure of the strength of society.

Once someone lifted you up and said you could create.  Now you can reach out to others, teach them to use their creativity.  Each person so encouraged is an ally and a beacon.  Connection spreads from the outstretched hand.

Creativity is the result of freedom.  Because new thoughts can come to mind, the unthinkable becomes possible.  As old ideas can be seen anew, the foundations of society are renewed.  Because new ideas are encouraged, society can change and evolve.  As people encourage creativity, alliances are built.

– Steve

Why Incompetence Is Something We All Choose

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

Some thoughts for all the people out there that follow me for career and creative advice . . .

Improving our skills and abilities, learning new things, is something we all develop.  Most of us do it consciously, sometimes with a great deal of planning.  It may even obsess some of us as our jobs and lives require us to learn at a rapid pace. However there’s a shadow side to what we choose to become competent in – a choice to learn something means there’s a lot else we choose not to learn at that time.

Every choice to educate ourselves means we’re spending time and resources that aren’t used learn a different subject.  Each competency is paid for in not learning something else. For all you are good at, there’s a large amount of things you don’t know and can’t do, and you chose these “incompetencies” willingly or not.

We probably don’t look at learning as “choosing an incompetency” as a form of defense because there’ so much we don’t know and it scares us.  We’re taught to think only of being good (or acceptable) at something, not bad at something.  We’re taught not to admit failure or lack of ability because we seem weak, but to ignore it or pretend we’re good at everything.

But we have to accept the truth – choosing a competency is also choosing incompetencies. If we accept the we choose our ignorance and lack of ability, we can choose wisely.  If we’ve decided we can’t truly know or learn something, then we’re prepared for that gap in our lives.

We can develop that valuable competency of knowing what we don’t know – and why we don’t know it.

We can bring an innocent attitude to learning so those that know something we do not (that we may choose not to educate ourselves on) can teach us.

We can stop worrying about not knowing.  We’re all fools at one point, so let’s be fools consciously.

Exercise: List ten things you know nothing about that affect your life.  Why didn’t you learn them? What did you learn in their place?

– Steve