What does it mean to be creative?

I'm not sure if you mean here and now, specifically--what this post evokes--or more generally, what creativity means to me, posted to my own journal.

Though I suspect you meant both. You tend to seem like the sort who likes to see what things mean to people, in whatever context.

(cough)

In any case. I'll probably have to go find a lined notebook, in either case--uncertain musings like that always seem to work better coming out of a pen, somehow.

Thanks again. :)

Well, then, on this topic:

I don't really know whether to count myself as a creative person, because I'm never sure what definition we're ascribing to. I don't put the time into creativity, I don't undergo particular hardship to see it through, and in general the stuff I do make seems a pretty blatant play at two rather base desires: The first, a pacifier, to get my head off of the world and the ways it makes me anxious; the second, fairly blatant wish fulfillment. (My last comic project basically screamed "I wish someone would take care of me.") When I'm happy, I don't tend to do any of it under my own energy. This seems to be contra-indicative to what's generally put forward as a creative person; there's lots of talk of the spark, the compulsion, and how to not create is to not breathe.

So it surprised me that I empathized so much with some of the items here.

The highs and lows--dear goodness, in spades. The rabbit queen index card I did basically matched my intentions, but that is on a really short list. And the getting in the way of normal functioning--well, possibly because I use it as base escapism, but . . . yeah.

Makes me wonder if I've got the definition wrong, or poor delineations.

But the other definition I've got is extremely wide--creativity is creation, or the intersection of thinking/deciding and physical reality. A creative type is someone primarily attracted to this type of function. I think this definition is a little wide for most tastes, much as I imagine that a lot of people would agree that there's not much difference in building a car or writing a poem, so long as the same spark is involved.


I keep going in circles, but that's the general circle of thoughts this article inspired in me.

I guess that's it. ^^;

A writer friend of mine once analyzed the story "The Ugly Duckling" for an essay. He thought it was all about physical appearance, which upset me, because I felt he got it completely wrong. I explained that the "duckling' was only ugly when he lived among ducks. When he met the swans, he was accepted and even hailed as the best of them all. (Of course, he grew up in the meantime.) I said the story is about being different, and having to find others who appreciate you because they're like you are.

As a creative person, I very much identified. When I was growing up, I never had the same values or interests as most of the people around me. In college and afterward, when I started to meet other people interested in writing, art, music, theater, etc., I became more happy and outgoing because I could see I wasn't crazy...I was just "different," like them, and not necessarily in a bad way!

I have a second bedroom which the craft supplies are trying to overrun. But yes!