‘Somewhere a lightbulb flashed and fired me up, yesterday…’
‘ . . .and I haven’t been able to stop since.’
A friend of mine ignored me for a few minutes, and carried on sketching something.
I sat down, and waited.
Creativity begins with a moment which often slips by all too quickly – somewhere we feel a flicker, and then it is gone. Something which usually lies deep in ourselves is momentarily stirred, and if we are in the mood to capture it, we find that we are suddenly out on the hunt. Often, we aren’t able to name our quarry – but the hunt is addictive.
As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm – if God there was in the beginning, it wanted to create itself endlessly, and somehow, I imagine, got lost in the doing of it. एकोहम बहुस्याम in Sanskrit….(pronounced Ekoham Bahusyam) I am one – I wish to be many. A momentary flash of divine desire, which continued its transmutation into many things and creatures. All that is manifest is that one principle, in an infinite variety of expressions, says the Upanishads .
This is one of the oldest creation stories of this world’s ancient civilisations. It was an early explanation – and for me, this is the core creative spark.
So I accept that inside everyone there is a spark – the wish to create. Trailing a hand down a field of wheat, it touches an ear of corn, and something, a spark of electric current perhaps, passes through. It produces a thrill – a connection. And we catch it, and use it, willing it to prolong its influence. The result is some bit of ‘output’.
A long slow burn – admiration
Have you noticed how often this kind of spark follows after we have encountered someone we admire?
‘Like this person, I want to . . .’ we say to ourselves. Are they our ‘creativity guides’? I don’t know.
But in their shining, we suddenly see that we too can shine. We pick up our pen, or our brushes, or put on our apron and head to the kitchen, or pick up the set square, pull out a fresh piece of squared paper, and clear our desk.
My mother would often thread up her sewing machine, make space on a dressing table top, and send me out to hunt for an old newspaper.
‘I’ve seen something on Park Street – you’d look very good in that’ she would say, with a smile. ‘It can’t be that hard’. And a day later some creation would emerge – her interpretation of the latest fashion as seen in the smart end of Kolkata.
Act on it
As you notice and capture that magical moment, you also have to be willing to act – and fail. That is the cost of testing your ability to translate that flash of the creative wink, into a moment of actual creation, which might resonate with others.
If my mother had not taken out her sewing machine, and produced something for me to wear I would not have had such an early understanding of what creativity looks like in action. Did she hesitate? Yes. Did she need to correct something she’d done wrong? Yes. She carried on, though. The art of finishing things is a part of it.
Risk taking and vulnerability are essential parts of creativity. So says Brene Brown of late – but many Indian sages before her.
Introverts and extroverts – listening slowly, reading slowly
Introverts like me get creative inspiration from all sorts of pieces of writing. Like the Raining Grace of the Shinto, creativity is a constant wave, waiting to be caught in whatever sized ‘bowl’ you can produce. If you are listening or reading, what is spoken or written cannot be in your control, but what falls into the you-shaped bowl, as it flows over you, becomes peculiarly yours. It makes a sort of nervous association within you – a feeling and a piece of knowledge, which is the definition of education, according to the philosopher, Swami Vivekananda.
Very often, when I am taking a break and reading my emails something will flicker.
It doesn’t come just when I am taking it slow—when the lightbulb moments happen, I may be stumbling along quite rapidly, led by ideas on a page, or a stream of words in a video or podcast. And there it is again, that thrill.
Often, it fades away.
Then, on the occasional cold Sunday, I find myself saying I must do something with it.
My friend looked up presently, put down his pencil, and smiled. ‘Not quite there’ he said. He put a cloth over it, and reached for his jacket.
We went out for a bite to eat.
What flashes cause you to stop and write? Or cook, or paint, or sketch, or speak, or make a garment or design a new version of your product?
Creativity is what AI cannot replicate. That is just plain human.
And that is why people will continue to hire other people.