Creativity is intelligence having fun
According to Einstein, “Creativity is intelligence having fun”.
My intelligence is not having a great deal of fun just now. In fact, I don’t think grown-ups are good at being creative or having fun. As a consultant, I have thrashed out many a corporate vision, but I cannot think of one client that put fun in its mission statement or as one of its corporate values. Many organisations actively espouse creativity in their culture and demand their workforce use it to solve business problems. I’m just not sure creativity ever shows up without a little frisson of fun. A social worker once told me that when she assesses the home of a prospective foster parent, she puts her feelers out for the emotional mood in the home. Is it clean, organised, warm? Do people have fun here? Is it a bit too clean, sterile even? Children love to be creative when given the chance but it can be quickly wet wiped away by an over zealous clean freak. Getting creative means getting a messy. It means glitter in the cracks, paint splodges on the furniture and sticky remnants on all your surfaces. Creativity needs a healthy dose of letting it all hang out and and getting jiggy with it. In the relinquishing of control we allow the fun to peek in. The emotional context or atmosphere of our homes and businesses either invites or extinguishes our kooky, creative instincts. I would go as far as saying that creativity can be a little shy and needs the devil may care attitude that a little fun can bring.
What is the current mood in your family/ business right now? I would probably guess at intense and/or serious or the more socially accepted synonym for overwhelm, busy. Let’s be honest, for most of us work isn’t expected to be a fun palace of delight. It is a pretty serious thing. It’s how we bring back the bacon, pay the mortgage, fund our fast food or shopping habit. Currently, many of us are not so much working from home as living at work. Which means that now we’re not being creative or having fun at home or at work. How do we actively invite the fun back into our homes and lives? I can feel anxiety rise even thinking about it. Maybe because, as Tim Minchin says, fun can be, “like an organism. If you over think it, it goes away.”
Being creative is a very difficult thing to force. Right, I’m going to be creative right now. I may as well be demanding that I immediately come up with an idea to make my first million, or a lucrative App or the title of the bestseller that I will write in this second lockdown. Unlikely, as the 1st lockdown did not prove to be a particularly fertile time for me. All I actually created was an endless supply of the same 5 meals, coolly received by my lock down family inmates. I just don’t think it’s possible to flick the fun switch and dive into your best, creative thinking.
So, I guess we need to ease into it. Julia Cameron, author of ‘The Artists Way’ recommends writing morning papers. I wonder if, by capturing your thoughts on paper, it prevents them from clogging up your creative funnel. I love the idea of using your journal like a sieve to strain the gunky, gloopy thoughts that might otherwise form a slimy seal, stemming your creative flow. How else can we separate the cool creative thoughts from the self-sabotaging sludge that smothers the merest flicker of our creative light? This is how it starts getting really messy and I’m not talking about glitter in your crevices. It comes down to the age-old inner battle between the forces of darkness and light, good and evil. Do we have creative angels or doubting devils on our shoulders or more accurately in our heads and how do we rescue the muse without waking the sleeping dragon?
“One does not become enlightened (or creative) by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
We do our inner work. We lower the volume on the inner saboteur and ultimately raise the volume on the voice inside us that wants to be seen, heard and express the ideas that matter. It is possible to raise our awareness of the real barriers that extinguish our creative thoughts. These barriers are the thoughts that fuel our perfectionism, self-doubt and scarcity e.g. I’m not good enough, clever enough, talented enough, ————enough. These thoughts form perpetual circles, diverting our attention to our lack, powerlessness and fear of failure. They steal our creative energy and slowly the creative flow ebbs away.
That’s a cheery thought. Why the hell are you telling us this? Because like Emma Gannon, author of ‘Sabotage’, I believe,
“You have everything inside you to keep the fire burning. It is an endless resource.”
I think it helps to think about creativity as if it were an internal bonfire, requiring us to tend to it, in order for it to merrily crackle away . Our creative bonfire needs us to lighten up, have some fun and seek out the subjects that spark passion and curiosity. At the same time, we need to protect our creative light from the chill wind of our inner, and sometimes outer, critics. It needs us to devote our time and attention to nurturing it and finding like hearted souls to uplift and encourage every and all our creative exploits. In the words Kurt Vonnegut;
Practice any art music, singing, dancing, acting drawing, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming. To find out what’s inside of you, to make your soul grow.
I know some artists prefer solitude to create but most of us need a little help from our creative friends if only to remind us to write, paint and compose whatever is written in our hearts. I think creativity needs community to uphold it and other creatives alongside us, fighting the same inner battles. In return for dedication, I believe that tending to our creativity provides us with an inner light and warmth that radiates. Like a stained-glass window, we want our true colours to light us up from within.