Inspiration is Not Creative?
As Bill Watterson’s Calvin explains to Hobbes, “you can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.” After Hobbes inquires as to what mood is the right mood, Calvin responds, “last-minute panic.”
Calvin is right; you can’t just turn on creativity. Creativity is actually achieved through a combination of consistent hard work and inspiration. Now I know by saying creativity is inspired that I just offended the half of my readers. However, there are two myths about creativity that I wish to dispel.
Myth number one: creativity is not something everyone can do. I agree that some people are more naturally inclined to the creative process. However, when you separate skill from the creative process, you can see that everyone can be creative. Personally I cannot draw, but that doesn’t mean I cannot imagine a creative drawing.
Myth number two: inspired creativity is not actually creative. People will try to sell you on the idea true creativity is an isolated work derived only from within. While this is a nice idea, it is impossible and in fact unhelpful to the creative process. Even if someone attempted to remove all stimuli from their environment, so as not to be inspired, the lack of stimuli itself is a method of inspiration.
Inspiration is a key element to innovation. Once we can accept inspiration as a part of the innovation and creative process, we can look for it. We look at context, at what others have done, what worked and what did not work and we are inspired to create. Like Calvin said, you can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. However, inspiration can help you find the water.
Some of you may be interested in this. The Ideas @ Aside blog pointed out a great inspiration resource, More Inspiration. This site currently contains 1,421 innovations to inspire you.
