CREATIVITY - What is that?

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.

That’s because they were able to connect experiences
 they’ve had and synthesize new things.

Steve Jobs

Dear course participants,

Creativity is the creative force, a resource that everyone carries within themselves and is available to all people. It helps us to solve problems, leads us to new and unanticipated paths, and inspires us to conceive of completely novel creations and artifacts.

Yet creativity isn’t a magic bullet that can be conjured up anywhere and at any time at the push of a button. It requires, aside from ego strength, additional conditions in order to manifest. It is also directly connected with basic trust, intuition and an impartial curiosity toward everything new.

Nature is the most amazing external expression of what (God’s) creativity and creation are capable of bringing into being. And, just as in nature, to bring forth fruit, creativity needs a thriving environment!

However, as prized and coveted as creativity is, the exact locus, or seat, of creativity hasn’t been identified to date by advanced research and scanning technologies. For example, brain researchers have been able to determine in which areas of the brain “creative processing” takes place, but they haven’t been able to pinpoint where or how a single thought or a single act of creation occurs.

Many creative people have, in the course of their life, developed their own techniques which they turn to as guidelines for igniting the connection to the source of creation, allowing them to create their inventions, works of art or innovations.

They’ve discovered that the authorship of their creations doesn’t hail from themselves but from “higher realms,” whose infinite reservoir they draw from and in which they not only believe but in the existence of which they’re quite convinced.

A person’s creative wealth is directly and closely connected to their own body of experience and knowledge, and the larger the pool is from which they draw their creative power, the more expansive their creativity.

The following is a compilation of what constitutes creativity, according to renowned Polish chemist and creative genius Marie Curie:

• a penchant for daydreaming, as a way “to connect the dots” between issues and generate new insights;
• the power of observation;
• the inclination to structure one’s work in such a way as to align with an organic flow rather than designated time constraints;
• the ability to be alone so as to be able to hold inner monologues, to find one’s inner voice;
• a readiness to use life crises as catalysts;
• the need to seek new experiences;
• perseverance in the process of trial and error; allowing oneself to make mistakes;
• the ability to ask questions again and again, especially the big questions;
• an appetite for risk;
• the inner need to pursue and express ideas as a form of self-expression and uniqueness;
• the ability to part with dated thought patterns and structures;
• the ability to become completely immersed in one’s actions, to the point of forgetting about the time;
• the habit of following one’s true passion.

May it become easier and easier for you to (re)connect to your own creative reservoir.

I hope that each and every one of you will find the opportunity to, however stressful your life may be, create small pockets of time allowing you to devote yourself leisurely to your own creativity and creations, be it through hobbies, playing with children or animals, or whatever your personal penchant may be.

Yours,

Linda Roethlisberger
www.trilogos.com

PS:  In the Archive section on our Trilogos German homepage, you’ll find the Arts and culture forum featuring many creative and valuable contributions.

• Christina Jacquard | Musical stroll
• Linda Vera | Exhibitions
• Marie-Louise Romer | Gallery
• Michael Hoffmann | Asurian sounds 
• Stefanie Sixt | Video installations
• Thomas Reck | Light forms the world