I had a chuckle with myself recently. This month’s theme is ‘Love to Create’ and ever since I have been devoid of all and any ideas. The irony!!!! What a time for writer’s block. The most creative thing I have managed this week is rustling up an ad-hoc meal with whatever ingredients there were left in the cupboard.
This actually did get me thinking about this topic from a very different perspective. It raises an interesting point about inspiration and what gets our creative juices flowing. I also think it is really important to consider what affects our creativity when as children we were often overwhelmed by our imagination and possibilities… in many cases making the impossible very possible!
We live in a world of technological advancements that would have been considered science fiction not too many moons ago. We are surrounded by huge achievements of engineering, art, literature, technology, science and architecture to name but a few.
Yet I would argue that our world – and more particularly our society – restricts and dampens our imagination. We are conditioned into processes and procedures, and bound by rules. We have our bubbles burst by doubters. We are hampered by the very people who we need inspiring the most. But it only takes one person to show the way.
Do we lack the courage and conviction to follow through with our ideas?
To create is not a whimsical philosophy. It takes courage, as Beth shared in this post, and as I will talk more about next week. It also requires inspiration.
Mother Nature is a constant reminder of what can be created and achieved, ‘life’ being the greatest example. Birds taking flight long before Bernoulli translated it into a mathematical formula. Nests, warrens and dams providing evidence of sustainable construction. It is all around us. We just need to look.
We can look to history to find the few who have inspired thousands by their vision. Visionaries if you like. They push the boundaries, they redefine the levels of expectation but most of all they are challenging us all to have a go ourselves.
After a few days of struggling for content for this post I was inspired by a post my wife wrote last week. It listed what she used to do as a child, from writing play scripts to baking, making pinhole cameras to calligraphy and a lot more. Thus providing me with a starting point. Somewhere to focus.
I looked back to my early childhood. How did I occupy my thoughts before anyone was telling me what they should be? I remember my Mum used to draw pictures of her old VW Beetle and we (my brothers and I) would colour them in. As we got better we even stayed within the lines. My Dad would challenge us to create the next new big board game. This never quite happened.
I created fantastical worlds for my action figures. My bed would be a desert, the carpet the sea. The windowsill would provide the cliff edges of a long lost mountainous terrain, and the chords to the blinds were the vines they could use to swing through the skies.
My ‘dinky’ cars would race against dinosaurs, underwater or in outer space. It didn’t matter. I was occupying and entertaining my creative side with possibilities.
I was a secret agent, with a secret agent name – Steven Firebird. (What would your secret agent name be?)
I climbed out from the crowd at Wembley to replace an injured England player and obviously score a last second winner with an outrageous bicycle kick! Why not? My imagination had no limits. Is that not the point of it?
Drawing and writing were definitely two things I loved doing. To take a blank piece of paper and draw something on it using nothing other than various strokes of a pencil or dashes of paint was fascinating. I loved writing short stories but I found these evolved from fantastical adventures to more melancholic poems of unrequited love as I grew. To my horror the odd piece would even find its way to the attention of my mates – how they laughed! For a few moments none of us would be able to breathe. Possibly not quite the effect I was after…
We still create as adults but the majority of us do it in a very different fashion than when we were children. We create environments, teams, atmospheres etc… Whether we deem this creative is open to definition but creating all the same.
Writers can create; suspense, humour, drama, adventure and a plethora of other emotions just by combining words in a certain order. It is art! An art!
I look in awe at what Walt Disney has achieved and created. The outline of Mickey Mouse’s ears is so recognisable. Even now the likes of Dreamworks and Pixar are redefining animation and story telling. This is an industry primarily for children… or is it? Is it in fact an industry for anyone who wants to escape and imagine? At the end of the day these magical stories, cartoons, animation and films are created by adults.
I have come from a Civil Engineering background and when in that job, although not quite as romantic as I would have liked, we created and provided safe and sustainable environments, some even architecturally beautiful. We created an environment that was not there beforehand. Creativity in amongst the science. But there came a point where imaginations were restricted more and more by finance, politics, policy and procedures, to the extent that you churn out modular, pre-fabricated solutions that inspire no-one, not even the people creating them. That is when I knew it was no longer for me.
Right now I need to allow my imagination to lead me and not the other way round, so I can use my creativity in other ways. I need to let go and see where it takes me.
How about you? Where will your imagination take you today?
Until next time…
Mr K
