Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

This video gives us a moment to think about why we might choose to make each day important in our lives, and our creative lives.

Creativity- What is Creativity Anyway?

Recently a reader asked me for my definition of creativity. That question helped me realize that I have been using the word in a way that assumes everyone knows what I mean, that we are all on the same page. Intrigued, I was stimulated to begin to look at creativity beyond the vernacular, i.e. the discovery of new ideas and insights.

I wondered what definition others might offer. Searching the websites of other creativity coaches and organizations which offer tools for creative change, I found that few offered up a definition of creativity. Most just assumed that the reader knew and accepted the idea of creativity. Like I did. So to begin to answer the question for me, and for that reader, I will present the ideas of a few current authorities on the subject, although there are far too many to include in this small blog.

Finding a simple answer is not so simple.

Posing the question, "What is Creativity?" I pondered whether it is problem solving or related to high intelligence; convergent thinking or divergent thinking; lateral thinking; conscious or unconscious thinking; associative thinking leading to invention; or is it thinking at all? Is creativity equated with the arts only? If it is also innovative, then are new products and scientific discoveries creative? Is creativity random or strategic; primarily sensory; affect laden; or intellectual?

The answers I uncovered are as varied as the authorities who try to answer it.
First, for anyone who is interested, Mark A. Runco, in Creativity, Theories and Themes, Research, Development, and Practice, Academic Press, 2007, details in 492 pages current research on creativity. In his chapter one conclusion, he states: "The most fascinating thing about the cognitive research on creativity may be its diversity." He likens the creative mind to an ecosystem: diverse species, diverse environmental influences, actions occurring on multi-levels, independently as well as interactively.

Clearly creativity is not just an issue of mind or of cognition. Runco spends the remainder of the text exploring developmental factors, biological dictates, and personality attributes, as well as how economics and culture influence or affect the process of creativity. Ultimately, he stresses throughout that care must be taken with the word "creativity" as "it is imprecise" (p. 384). After perusing the book, I had been exposed to much information but no answer that satisfied my personal question.

And another 450 pages of answering the question.

Authority Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in Creativity, Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, suggests like Runco, that creativity as commonly used covers too much ground. He places creative people into three categories. The first refers to people who seem unusually verbally bright. The second refers to people who experience the world in fresh, novel ways but only for themselves personally. third, those who have innovated and have changed the world through creativity. He distinguishes between talented people who can do something well but do not originate anything. He states that talent and creativity are not related. Now who would have imagined?

"Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic changes that result in biological evolution, where random variations take place in the chemistry of our chromosomes below the threshold of consciousness". These changes result in the sudden appearance of a new physical characteristic. If the trait is an improvement over what existed before, it may contribute to the evolution of the species. In the evolution of culture, the equivalent to genes are "memes" or units of information that we must learn if culture is to continue. These are passed on to our children so that they are remembered -like language or theories or stories. Creativity, according to Mr. C. is the action of changing these memes, and "if enough of the right people see the change as an improvement, it will become part of the culture "(p.7).

Csikszentmihalyi's bottom line on creativity is that a creative person is one whose idea, product or act is new and valuable in a specific field or domain. It must actually change that domain and be recognized by other people in that specific domain as having changed it. So from this definition, DaVinci, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, or Newton would be creative as they were recognized in their domain by their peers and each one's contributions changed our world forever. Thus, creativity is not just individual, but each person is a link in the cultural chain, culture being as important as the idea.

This definition certainly raises the "what is creative and what is not" bar to an impossibly high level. All you writers, actors, singers, graphic artists, etc. might be wondering if what you do would be considered creative based on Csikszentmihaly's criterion. Write the great American novel, or create a new art form then you are creative. How about your interpreting that Cole Porter song in a new way? Or developing a new plot twist for your cartoon strip? Does it count as creativity?

Great minds think alike-says who?

Let's consider definitions quite different from Mr. C. For example, Sigmund Freud designated creativity as a sublimation of sexual energy into socially acceptable acts, creativity being people's highly charged unconscious material dissipated into the arts. Julia Cameron, one of our current creativity muses offers that "creativity is inspiration coupled with initiative". Eric Maisel, a well known creativity coach, suggests in his 346-page book, Creativity for Life, that "artistically creative people love what they are doing, know what they are doing and actively engage in art-making. the three elements of creativity are thus loving, knowing, and doing; or heart, mind and hands...". (p. 7)

A bottom line-any bottom line?

I guess what I am driving at is that, even after thousands of pages of authorities trying, it is nearly impossible to nail a single definition of creativity; however, it seems that at its bottom line is the development of new ideas, acts or products, or taking old ideas and concepts and reworking them into new ideas, acts or products.

So in regards to "your" creativity versus Bill Gate's creativity, I want to add that from my perspective, even though your creative act does not change society to the sweeping extent that his did, if it is new to you, the person doing it, then it is indeed creative. You may not have changed society, but you have changed yourself and your "individual domains", possibly forever. And even though society may not take much notice of your contribution to its beauty or its ideas, your perception has been altered; your unconscious has been expressed; you have deeply felt the life stirring within you and have been moved to represent it with a story, drawing or song. And with this, your life takes on new meaning. Although perhaps not a tsunami in the culture, just lighting this little light of creativity in the world could ultimately have an impact. (See last blog for The Butterfly Theory)

Finally my answer to the question.

My attempt at answering the reader's question would be that, creativity is the making of beauty and/or of new meanings; the emergence of deeper self-awareness; the expression of long buried unconscious wishes or shadows; and alteration of sensual and cognitive perceptions. All this is shared through the rich metaphor or captured pixels of a poignant expression.

Moreover, your creations and you, transformed by them, are like water drops wearing holes in a stone. Slowly over time, they deeply impact not only your inner self but also your outer world, one little creative act at a time.