Creativity - Part 1

When I was still a kid, me and my cousin used to put up theatre shows with sock puppets and marionettes. We had a script, rehearsals, scenery, proper story acts and even a curtain that went up and down. At that time, I remember being fascinated by how is it possible to present entertaining content when there was none before. Me and my cousin started with nothing, tabula rasa so to speak, and managed to make something just from our ideas. That was for me the definition of creativity.

Creativity - to make something new from nothing. Although, when I think about it, this is kind of misguided. I do not believe creativity exists in a vacuum. This notion that an artist just comes up with things and nobody can understand them is too romantic and naïve. I do not remember creating something without inspiration. But what is inspiration? Some genius idea that just comes to you? No, for me, inspiration are works of other artists. There is a saying, famously repeated by Pablo Picasso and Steve Jobs that goes: "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Either way, nothing comes from nothing, it has to be borrow from somewhere. The difference is in copying or stealing. Good artists simply repeat what they have already experienced, while great artist try to understand the source and what makes it so powerful. So they make it their own, hence, they "steal it".

Creativity cannot be observed only from the artistic point of view.  It is in our biological nature to reproduce, which is also a form of creativity. What about inventiveness – how much modern technology comes from people who were too lazy do to something and took the time to go around it?

I believe creativity is in its core the power to appreciate the world around us which in turn enables us to understand it. This, coupled with our desire to reproduce and enrich our physical and mental ability to survive, leads to creating new things, regardless of their purpose.