What is creativity?

Creativity has become a trend, a goal so to speak, for many people these days. It is a word that brings both awe and fear. Some call it the quality of the future. And even though most people strive to be creative, as a whole, defining ourselves as creative feels quite overwhelming to the majority of us. We immediately think of artists, painters, musicians. But we can also think of scientists, inventors, world leaders. After all creativity is closely linked to innovation. But it is not just that. The spectrum of situations that creativity covers is large. It is not solely being Picasso or da Vinci, there is a hidden depth to what creativity really gives us and how vast or small it could be. Had we wished to, we can all lead a more creative life, a freer life, a life where we can choose differently. My point being, it is not as out of reach as it sounds.

Is creativity a superpower?

Before we dive into analysing creativity, I will share a story with you. I was not good at maths as a kid, in fact I hated the subject. It seemed dry, complicated and I didn’t understand the point of it. My favourite classes at school were English and art, closely accompanied by geography. And yet I somehow managed to receive a PhD in Maths. The bottom line here is that I was definitely not born a mathematician. However, I had another personality trait that I was born with — I was as stubborn as a person could be. I didn’t like failure, I was scared of the judgement that comes with it, I was scared I will disappoint myself and my family had I failed a maths test. So I sat down, studied hard and managed to redefine myself as the top of the maths class. I didn’t give up when I got a lower grade, on the contrary, it motivated me. It motivated me to try harder and become better, because I felt in my heart that it was possible. I trained myself to be good at the subject and not to be afraid to fail when I tried new tasks. So naturally I always rise an eyebrow when I hear parents and children say to me — I am not good at maths, I cannot do it, you are either born good at maths or you aren’t. How unhelpful would it be if we claimed we are either born good at something or we aren’t? Surely, we all have our individual talents and inclinations, but these do not define our full potential, they don’t limit how far we can go. So for me a more helpful way to look at something is as follows. We can envision ourselves at a junction where we can take one of two paths. Option 1 — we let go of the fear and try our best, work hard and see where this would lead us, or option 2 — we succumb to the fear and follow the easy path, the path where we tell ourselves we cannot do it. Warning — even if we take the steep path there is no guarantee we will succeed. But is there any guaranteed success anywhere in life? When you buy ingredients for a cake in the shop are you 100% convinced your cake is going to turn out exactly the way you wanted it to? I am willing to bet my money on the answer being no.

I would say it is the same with creativity — are you born creative? Most probably yes. One of the most popular words to associate with creativity is being imaginative. And who are the most imaginative beings? The children. It always fascinates me how curious they are, how they have the thirst for knowledge and the power to create their own little world — the toys they give voices to, the bedsheet hung on the sofa that transforms into a magical fort, the mud ball that is a gourmet meatball at their made-believe restaurant and so on. So how come we are born with this superpower and then as time goes on we claim that we are just not creative?

It is the same as with maths — it is the fear that we will fail, it is choosing option 2 at the junction. It is the heavy weight of the word that overwhelms us. When someone says creativity, we think of artists, photographers, Earnest Hemingway, Vogue covers… But it doesn’t have to be that way. When I say I am a mathematician, does it imply I am Einstein or Gauss?

Is creativity difficult?

You can be creative in many ways — the way you combine your clothes, the way you change a few ingredients in a dish and create an entirely new dish, the way you organise your journal, the way you write your emails.. It does not have to be huge. You just have to let go of the fear and try it. The more you try, the better it would feel, the easier it would feel and (bold claim alert) it would make your life more exciting.

So what really is creativity?

As a scientist by education I have the inclination to search for definitions and do a bit of research before I decide how to form my opinions. So here is what stood out to me when I searched how people would define creativity.

“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our “inner” pool of resources — knowledge, insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary ways.” — Maria Popova, Brainpickings

Runco and Jaeger define creativity as bipartite, they write: “Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness”.

To me creativity is putting things together that did not formerly belong together. It is a bit like pattern spotting — what can be grouped together, that is not exactly the same but kinda goes? What is similar enough to something I have already seen, but at the same time different enough to create a new element and shed light on the former object in a novel way? In this sense I agree that originality is vital to creativity. But I also believe that originality is what scares people, it seems overwhelming to come up with an entirely new thing. I had experienced the same when I started my PhD in Mathematics and was told that to graduate successfully I needed to come up with a new mathematical theory. Way to get someone feel relaxed on their first day of graduate school! But in fact what happened was that I did not have to reinvent maths as I thought I would, all I had to do was spot something in an existing theory that could be substituted with a different object having similar but not exactly the same properties, and then see what the implications of the substitution would be. So in a sense I created an original theory, but I did not start from scratch — I had a base to work on and I used it as a solid foundation to create something that had not been done before.

I like a quote of Steve Jobs on the topic:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”

In her book “Big Magic”, Elizabeth Gilbert writes:

“When I talk about creative living [..] I am not talking about pursuing a life that is professionally or exclusively devoted to the arts. [..] No, when I refer to “creative living” I am speaking more broadly. I am talking about living a life that is driven more by curiosity than by fear.”

If you live a life driven by curiosity you have a better chance of uncovering something you love than if you live a life where you reject the unknown. Because isn’t this the root of the creative fear? We reject maths because it is too difficult, it is too foreign, there is too much to it. We reject originality because it seems like such a huge leap from our routine that we do not see how being inventive is a quality we have. The known is safe, it is orderly, it is logical to us, we know what to expect. Or do we? If we never made a single change in our lives is this going to shelter us from the scary side of it all? Does choosing the path of logic instead of creativity guarantee us a safer existence?

Does logic defy creativity and vice versa?

A lot of people see leading a creative life and the creative process itself as chaos in some way. There is always change, there is a lot of trial and error and it sometimes seems random. So is creativity the opposite to logic in this sense?

I believe that the concepts are highly interconnected. There is some logic to creativity — your brain will not pair things that are so unnatural that it is illogical for them to fit together. If you are a chef, it is unlikely you put a toaster part in your Michelin Star soufflé. If you are a writer, you will not create a narrative where your characters change completely in each chapter and the plot makes no sense. I mean, you can, but I highly doubt people would love it. We as humans are wired to search for patterns, to search for the logic in things, to search for a connection. So even in our creative process we would opt for something that fits with some part of what we know or what we have experienced. Therefore, there is some internal logic to creativity itself, even though it may not be aligned with the logic of the majority of the people or the world. But if it was, then where would the originality in the creation be?

Having done a doctorate in maths, I can definitely tell you that even in the most logical arguments and scientific proofs, there is space to get creative. There is space to see things differently and to present things in a novel way. And to be completely honest, the more creative you get, the more success you have in science. Even Einstein says: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.”

So yes, maybe creativity is the quality of the future, and I hope it is, as it is the underlying element of progression, of moving forward. I hope we as species understand what a creative existence, an existence in flow, truly is, and manage to break our internal chains and live as fearlessly and creatively as we choose. Because that would be the true step forward.