Where does creativity come from?
There’s a common perception most people have, which is: you’re either born with a creative gene or not. But all you need to do is watch small children at play to realize that’s not the case. We’re all creative. In fact, almost all of us are born creative geniuses.
In George Land’s TEDXTucson talk titled, “The Failure of Success,” he shared an imaginative thinking test conducted by NASA, which gathered 1,600 children and asked them to look at a problem and come up with new and innovative ways to solve it. The results were astonishing. A whooping 98% of children between the ages of 4 and 5 fell into the genius category of imagination. They followed this group and tested them again when they were 10 years of age and then again at age 15, and the numbers continued to fall dramatically, eventually reaching 2% for adults (average age of 31).
So why is this?
According to Dr. Land, the greatest obstacles to creativity are judgment, criticism and censoring. Our brains have two ways of thinking: divergent and convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is when we’re in analyzing mode. We’re dissecting problems, assessing and making decisions. On the flip side, divergent thinking is the process of idea generation, which requires openness and flow (see my blog post on getting into a flow state).
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that helps us to effectively engage in executive functioning (this includes things like analyzing, decision making, and judgment). But the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed in humans until age 25. You could then argue that because the part of a young child’s brain that acts as an obstacle to creative thinking isn’t developed yet, that’s why young children are so creative. It’s likely not that simple.
Outspoken author and educator Sir Ken Robinson, believes that the school system diminishes children’s creativity, which he spoke humorously and eloquently about in his 2006 TED Talk on this topic, viewed more than 74 million times. He believed schools overemphasize standardized testing and subjects like math and science over arts.
In his talk, Robinson said, being wrong doesn’t make you creative, but:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
This is a powerful idea. He goes on to say that companies stigmatize mistakes made by its workers and in school, mistakes are the worst thing you can make, essentially teaching children out of their creative capacities.
But where exactly does creativity come from?
Some people like Julia Cameron, author of the iconic book on honing creativity, The Artist’s Way, believe there is a spiritual aspect to channeling your art. She writes in the book, “The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic, also believes in creativity being a mystical process. She wrote, “I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment, not entirely human in its origins.” She goes on to respectfully disagree with a neurologist who she read in an interview as saying, the creative process might seem magical, but it’s not.
We live in a world that values science over art, and the material plane over the non-physical, so I’m hardly surprised a neurologist doesn’t believe there’s any magic to the creative process. Ask any artist and I’m sure they’d have a different answer. It sounds far-fetched but I think creative ideas can come from an unknown or divine realm. The only way to channel that energy is to clear your mind from all of the junk that’s cluttering it up (one of the many reasons I like meditating before I write).
If you are scared you’ve “lost” your creativity or want to evoke more creative ideas, just remember that it’s in you. It’s been there all the time.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Picasso:
“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”
