One Thought

Being creative is hard. More specifically, creation is hard, and creative creation–excuse the jargon–is very hard. (To create is to produce something; to create creatively is to produce something substantially original.) Creation is active and intentional–you can’t just wait for it to happen. Drive and determination are necessary.

Creation is quite doable, though. I create all the time in my job, for example. When I come up with new ideas and implement them or express them to others, I am creating. Work is very structured, though–I come in at a specific time, sit down, and have nothing to do but create (for the benefit of the company, of course). There is social pressure to get stuff done, and doing nothing would be conspicuous.

Creation in an unstructured environment is more difficult. Without structure, you’re accountable only to yourself, so the social pressure isn’t there. That means you have to apply pressure to yourself or structure things so that pressure is applied externally (i.e., get a teammate, get a teacher, or meet regularly with a group). Without pressure (internal or external) it’s natural to do what is easiest in the short-term.  And what’s easiest in the short-term is often not very rewarding in the long-term.

Let’s assume you’ve properly structured an environment that allows you to create with relative ease. If your goal is simply to implement, that arrangement is fine. However, if you want to step beyond the bounds of what has been done before–that is, to be original–more is necessary.

Implementation skill is far more common than creative skill. Case in point: though there are innumerable skilled instrumentalists and prolific composers, original music is quite rare. It’s relatively common for musicians to learn to create music in a certain way and then simply to implement that technique, song after song. Music can be like any other trade–with enough practice, little inspiration or creativity is required.

Creating creatively is very hard, and, from my experience, very few people can do it. Creativity requires originality–the ability to combine influences in a way that generates something substantially new–and this skill is difficult to develop. While it’s possible to teach techniques for thinking creatively, it’s impossible to teach how to be creative–by definition, there can’t be a step-by-step plan. Contrast this with implementation skill: one can become an excellent implementer simply by learning and practicing. Creativity requires an extra, hard-to-define leap beyond implementation.

I think creativity can be practiced, though. It’s difficult to create without implementing first. For example, it’s difficult to compose new music without learning to play existing music; it’s difficult to develop your own writing style without experimenting with the styles of others. Implementation skill is necessary, though obviously not sufficient, to creativity. Much of creativity is simply combining influences in new ways. Forcing yourself to step outside the boundaries of your influences on a regular basis can develop the creative skill. Practice is extremely important