Freewrite Friday: Those bursts of creativity. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.
I love to dance. Most of you guys may know that by now. At times when I feel most creative is, honestly, when I see others being creative. Maybe from watching a YouTube video or even seeing a bboy in person, I feel inspired to create something of my own. These sporadic bursts of creativity for me also happen primarily at night, rather than early in the day.
Creativity comes from other creativity. It’s cool how it works. From other people being creative, comes another person being creative. For example, if I’m inspired because I watched someone dance in a certain way, it (even subconsciously) allows me to take what I’ve learned and put my own twist on it. Not just dance, but movies, art, music, and writing develop new ideas from previous ideas.
Creativity, to me, results from an infinite regression that traces back to our Creater. Our God. It’s crazy really.
Nowadays, it seems at times that it’s a trend to be creative. It’s cool to be original. So when people strive to be creative or original, they’re missing the point. I love this quote by C.S. Lewis in his classic writing, Mere Christianity, as he states,
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
You can’t be creative by attempting to be creative for the sake of the trend. In doing so, you’ll just create a product of imitation. If we’re being honest to oneself, instead of wanting to please others, that’s when true creativity is, for lack of better words, created. That is when you are truly original.
