Dear Dreamwidth:

[kaberett]

Creativity. What do you mean when you say it, or think when you come across the word?

This post brought to you by a conversation on a train.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

The ability to, well, create. To make a thing where there was not a thing before, or to take pieces of a thing that was there (or several things that were there) and put them together in such a way as to make a new thing. Paint becomes painting. Yarn becomes scarf. Words become story.

*tracks post*

[raze]

Producing or transforming something in such a way that something new is created. I believe this to be part of every human's potential; from childhood, we imagine, strive to express ourselves through creative outlets. While I don't know that it's uniquely human, I do see it as a huge part of what makes us human.

[jedusaur]

Making things despite not knowing exactly how they'll turn out. So cooking a dish I've made dozens of times doesn't feel creative to me, but mixing up the spices in ways I haven't tried before does. Hypothesis generation is the most purely creative act I engage in. Writing is another one I do a lot of. I don't do much visual art, but the other day I found myself going back to reread this one tweet over and over, and eventually I doodled it neatly on a piece of paper, framed it, drew some blood dripping down the side, and hung it in my bathroom; and that felt very much like the kind of transformative creation I do in fandom.

I'm actually very interested in creativity research, and I've read a lot of studies that have affected my personal habits (e.g. putting myself in an unfamiliar setting, listening to music I don't listen to often, or drinking alcohol [in moderation, ofc] to stimulate creativity).

[khronos_keeper]

Creativity-- such a fascinating word. With a very loaded history. I think one of my favorite things about it, is that it has only really recently (like within the past idk 300 years) started to be used for humans and their efforts.

Interestingly, it's almost exclusively been used to refer (in at least the English and French derivative word) to the works and acts of God-- as in, the original and only Creator sort of sense. And while I'm not religious, I find this to be wonderfully depictive and informative of the culture of the language.

Locally, I think writing. I think backdoors and trapdoors into human cognition that is only now being explored and discovered and wondered about, and I think, "How can I get there, how can I find that?"

I think of humans and their endless drive to understand and explain and make sense of the world around them, and their tireless quest to know, and in their knowing observe the world and create stories.

I think of gods and atoms, and realize that creativity is the nature of humans-- inasmuch as gods and science are human constructs to make sense of the world, sense-making narratives, devices to tell stories that shift and mature as humanity ages. That creativity is a concept we as a race use to explain our vast and sheer ignorance of the things that tower above us, and we seek to fill that void with our stories. We create the world with our stories.

Creativity is humanity.

(This ramble brought to you by: a grad student up past midnight, who has way too much on her mind.)

[silveradept]

The wellspring from which all ideas flow, whether entirely new creations, novel ways of combining other things, or modifications to things that already are. We all have it, although only some of us are acknowledged as having it and fewer still encouraged to actually use it.

[hairyears]

Creativity: creating new things; interpreting things in new ways; putting things together in new ways; finding unexpected delight in things we thought were the same old things.

[simont]

Creativity, hmmm.

To start with, I've always detested (not surprisingly, and probably out of pure self-interest) the notion of 'creativity' that says it's about artistic creation only, and science-shaped activity is uncreative by definition. Not that I've heard that idea very often recently (but then, surrounded by science-shaped people, they probably don't like it much either) but I used to hear it at school.

So, with that usage thrown in the bin, I think I have two main usages of the word to describe things I do and feel.

One is 'creative' in the sense of 'prone to create' – the mood or frame of mind that I get into sometimes in which I feel moved to bring new stuff into existence. Usually (me being me) that's software, but not exclusively. It's the particular frame of mind I need to start a new project, or continue building up a previously started one which is still in the state of not yet being ready for its first exposure to the hostile universe: partly it's a determination and a willingness to do a lot of work building the thing, and partly it's the frame of mind which permits design of a previously nonexistent thing, because in that state I'm undaunted by the huge range of plans and strategies and approaches and designs that (unconstrained by prior design decisions or commitments to backwards compatibility) I could pick and I feel able to choose one and more or less commit to it – and I'm confident that on the one hand I can choose a basic starting direction well enough not to regret my choice too much, and on the other hand I can adapt the details as I go to modify the direction I'm heading in as it (inevitably) turns out to be needed.

The other thing I mean when I say 'creative' is the process of coming up with new ideas, or finding new and unorthodox solutions to problems. I tend to feel as if I don't actually do that all that often – I see myself more as an engineer type, who takes other people's good ideas and builds them into robust solid (er, even if intangible) products, than as an inventor type who brings the good ideas into existence in the first place. But I do do the latter sometimes, and what the process generally feels like to me is as if two (or more) ideas already in my head collided at an unusual angle and emitted a new and exciting kind of particle. I've always felt that I have my best ideas when I'm in a slightly floaty, unfocused frame of mind, e.g. half asleep, because in that state concepts from all over my range of thought are drifting around my head in an uncontrolled way and more likely to combine in interesting ways than when I'm concentrating hard on actually doing something. (That said, a prior period of concentration on whatever problem I want a creative solution to is often a good primer: that brings a lot of potentially relevant concepts to the top of my brain and causes them to be among the ones floating around in the half-asleep state.)

[pretty_panther]

To end up with something from nothing or to turn one thing into something else. Whether that is writing a story, an essay, an argument, a poem, a scarf, a pretty garden.

[barrelofrain]

I've always hated being called "artistic" or "creative," and even more than those, "talented." It's a complicated thing... it partly has to do with drawing a line at what people are naturally good at and something that someone has worked very hard to get good at. *shrug*

[naath]

Creativity is making novel things, things that didn't exist before you made them (or that you didn't know about existing). New stories, or new soups, or new scarfs, or new treatments for cancer... lots of types of new thing. It's about inventing new questions just so you can answer them.

It's a thing I almost entirely lack. :( :( It feels like something you can't learn, but maybe I'm wrong.

[askygoneonfire]

Originality, inspiration, thinking new thoughts and producing something to represent those new thoughts - whether that be a theory, a piece of writing, a piece of art, or music. I think I only use 'creativity' to describe something I deem to have, or recognise as having, value. It is a positive term/an endorsement for me. I think describing someone has having/being creative suggests they are also prolific, for me.

[birke]

My first thought is "artist." People who make visual art or write novels. I don't believe in the "creative class," as it includes people who really don't make anything new, they just work to present what they're given. I say that as someone who gets classed as creative when I don't actually want to be. I am a writer or a journalist, but my job isn't to create -- it's to inform. If I come up with an awesome new way of informing people, then I'll be creative. Mashing words doesn't do that.

My second thought is "people who do something in a new way, that no one's thought of before." Creative tactics in community organizing and advocacy, for example. The Yes Men are creative.

And yes, when you say "creativity," I do think of people who possess it. Not specific actions, but people who are creative and habitually do creative things. I think it's a habit of mind, not an activity.

[glass_icarus]

The ability to conceptualize something in a novel/thought-provoking/imaginative way. The willingness to try something new. The ability to take a bunch of parts and make something unexpected with them. Having the ability to connect with other people emotionally as well as intellectually is threaded through all of those as well, but I am spectacularly un-wordly tonight and can't figure out how to say any of what I mean in the way that I actually, er, mean it. /o\