Why Creativity Is About Nuture Not Nature

in #creativity7 years ago

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For ages, Creativity is something that Humans have always believed to be in the possession of a few set of people

Ranging from the Greeks who believed that creativity was a divine serving spirit(daemons) which possesses certain Humans and make them extra special, to the Romans who had a much similar narrative, but in their case the spirit was called a Genius

Hundreds of years down the Line, this narrative still hold sway but it now has a new twist. Creativity is no longer attributed to spirits, but to unique Individuals. We believe that only Humans like Steven Hawkings and Elon Musk have that creative genius

So I ask : Is the rest of the world dumb?

Is the layman not capable of creativity, or is it something like blue eyes or a perfect shape which is genetically a property of the privileged few

The truth is that Creativity is not in possession of a privileged few, you too can be creative if you chose to be. There are certain behaviors and mindset that can help you achieve Creativity and I will be outlining them in this post


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Steal Like An Artist

If you are someone who wants to really hone your creativity, Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist is a book I will reccomend you to read. Even if you cannot get your hands on the book I will advice you to read the summary online

You will find out that nothing comes from nowhere, everything new has a source.

It is all about remixing existing works and adding your own bit of spark to it.The right fusion will always bring out something unique even though it is not completely original

When people call something 'Original', nine out of ten times they just don't know the refrences or the original sources Invovled Jonathan Lethem

The path to a creative world is learning to steal like an Artist


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Seek And You Shall Find

For you to find something worth stealing you have to serach for it. The quality of your input is what determines the quality of your output

You will always manifest what you internalize. Research is one of the most Important thing for you on your creative journey. I am always amazed on how people get stuck on some simple problems a simple Google search can solve

A lot of people spend lots of money on technicians and engineers on small problems that they could have solved for themselves if they chose to seek out Information regarding the problem

Look for the great people in your field or niche and study their work, study the work of the people who they learnt from too. Go as far back in time as possible and learn, that the key to seeking out knowledge


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Explore

It is very easy for You to develop one view of the world when you work for so long with a particular method. It is a kind of shortcut the Human Brain develops to speed up the thinking process

The downside is that you will become more single eyed and less receptive to new ideas. You will find it harder to respond to change

He that is good with the Hammer tends to think everything is a Nail . Abraham Maslow

You will have to seek out new ways of doing things and this does not mean you should craft new principles , You just have to fine tune existing thing that works and apply them

Google Search results was built very similar to Academic Publishing where the most valuable resources gets shown first based on the amount of Citations(back links ) they have

Original and Creative solutions are not crafted from thin air, you just have to find the right ideas and work on combining them

James Altucher calls it idea sex


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Never Stop Creating

When people ask me how I learnt to write so well. I tell them it is consistency that helped me get this far. I still get angry whenever I go days without writing, thats what got me this far

Consistency helps you get better over time. I know this because whenever I go back to read my older post, they look very bad to me. Most time I don't believe that I was writing so badly in the past, but I still see comments on those post of people who thanked me because the post was so 'good'

Men like Thomas Edison are famous for their endless experiments. The light bulb took hundreds of experiments to work. Thomas Edison has a record of 1090 patents and I don't see anyone breaking that anytime soon

Picasso the famous painter has over 20,000 artworks in his name

Like everything in Life there is no certainty of what will be a hit. You even experience it here on Steemit, the posts you pour out time and energy into mostly make nothing, but the ones you just wrote to fulfill all righteousness are the ones who hit big

You cannot eliminate Quantity in the road to Quality.

Quantity breeds quality, the process of creating something no matter how bad it might look helps you in creating soemthing better next time

Just Create


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While creativity does not come easily, but when you start working towards it, it it becomes like a second nature for you

While it may be hard for you to measure your creativity, the goal is continuous Improvement and you also need to create a ritual for yourself to make the work process faster

When it comes to content creation there are some steps I take to find Inspiration and it is always a combination of the steps I outlined above

Creativity is a process, and creating and following a system will help you get there faster, you just have to put in the work


Thanks For Reading

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Most times people confuse creativity and innovation.
These terms are basically not the same thing,. Innovation I define simply means been able to improvise and add flesh to an already existing process or a thing while creativity is the act of bringing out something new into existence with different process or means

God has bestowed we humans with talent and it is when we build of our talent, that we truly see the that we all had a sleeping giant that is resting only waiting to be awakened.

Creative minds are those that rule the world because they alleviate the problem of people through their creations.

Who would ever think that one-day an atm machine would be produced , a machine that pays the bank customers without them having to go through the hectic process of filling a withdrawal slip and standing on the long queue just to withdraw money. This same ATM machine has now been innovated into accepting money, meaning you don't need to go into the bank to deposit your money as well.

Who would ever thought that Oliver and wright the inventors of airplane would one day produce a machine that can take man around the world. This is the power of creativity.

A lot of creative men have left their name on the sands of time and up till today they are celebrated.
This is very true

While creativity does not come easily, but when you start working towards it, it it becomes like a second nature for you

I am a living testimony to it.

There is no virgin topic or work, most of what we have today are product of different works combined together to produce a more better one.
I fell in love with the article, thanks @ogochukwu this made my day.

This is the a very amazing comment @cyprainj It shows that you really took time to read the post and I am very glad that you understood the message I was trying to pass across.

Creativity still has a little to do with nature sha. Still we have a responsibility to develop those innate gifts of ours. They might still not be innate but self development is key.

Great great great work you have here @ogochukwu. I like the way you make this topic look so simple to assimilate.
There is a view I have about creativity that has been a major help for even here on Steemit which I am happy you have stated it here as well

When people ask me how I learnt to write so well. I tell them it is consistency that helped me get this far. I still get angry whenever I go days without writing, thats what got me this far
Consistency helps you get better over time. I know this because whenever I go back to read my older post, they look very bad to me. Most time I don't believe that I was writing so badly in the past, but I still see comments on those post of people who thanked me because the post was so 'good'

When I started out on Steemit I was always having issues with coming up with the next topic to write about but with consistency, I don't think of what to write about anymore. I was also having issues writing well, truth, I hated writing but since I needed to survive, I just needed to keep pushing. There is nothing that facilitates creativity like consistency in whatever you do.

Additional point
Love; this is one factor that makes creativity to express herself. When you love whatever you do, you discover that in a bit to do what you just love doing, you bring out what seems to be a magic. I like to end this with a quote;

When you love a thing, you will look for every opportunity to make that thing better, thus, creativity.

Your Soulfriend
@geekis.

Love; this is one factor that makes creativity to express herself. When you love whatever you do, you discover that in a bit to do what you just love doing, you bring out what seems to be a magic. I like to end this with a quote;

This is a huge factor too. You have to love what you do. That is the greatest pusher of Creativity

Thanks for reading @geekis

In addition to this, i would like to say that creativity is the ability to use imagination to create a quality idea or a product that is useful to the society. Creativity may seem to be very hard to do but when those behaviours and mindset mentioned above by @ogochukwu are being observed and applied at the same time, would result to an overwhelming product or finished work. To my own understanding, i feel that creativity is the founder of technology. Because if not for it, the technological advancements we are seeing today wouldn't have been in existence. It was that creative mindset mark zuckerberg had that made him think of creating the 1st social media i have ever known, if at all there were any that existed before facebook. It was that same creativity that made 'Larry page' to think about bringing everything in the world to one place(google).

Now, talking about creativity when it comes to writing down original articles here on steemit, it can either be thought of as putting down something that never existed before or getting informations from different sources and putting them down in your own language. Yea, its not an easy job to do but consistency just like my brother @ogochukwu said in this form(never stop creating) will make it look as if its as easy as chewing gum. Thanks to @ogochukwu for this wonderful article filled with motivation.

I just have one question for you, bro. How can i lay my hands on this book 'steal like an artist'? Would really appreciate it if i get a response back on how to get the book. Thanks

To get the book you can follow the link in the post to know more about it. You can read the summary online if you cannot get your hands on the book.

Thanks for reading

Thanks a lot big bro

Creativity goes beyond being a genius its simply doing it specially and exceptionally different from others this may be a result of hard work, constant meditation on how to solve a problem or an ability as earlier stated in the post.

Thanks for reading @elixbaba

Thanks, @ogochukwu for the educative message truly most times practice makes us perfect when I was told about steemit first I thought I would not make it but my inner man told me to give it a try and yes am here. It is not easy to be creative if you do not read a lot of books statistics show that people who read alot are more creative

Yes for you to be an good writer you have to be an avid reader

Thanks for reading @ireneblessing

I believe everyone, is creative in his/her own ways, thinking is what makes us different from one another , one might have the chance to build a technology that will transport the world further, its his thinking mentality that will either allow him to invent it, or do away with that idea of his.

Hawking didn't just become creative , he's thought helped him too..

But he did a lot of research before he could come up with his theories, they were not manufactured out of thin Air

The need to create is inata in human being, even little explored, is what motivates the world to think that there is always someone creating art, new inventions, medicines for health, toys, music ... in his post there is a declaration of the importance and it is wonderful to think that each day this human creativity increases that is infinite and that on the other hand it unites us as beings inhabiting the same planet when the creatives share it with the world, greetings that this very we

Thanks for reading @aplausos

This is another interesting write up from you @ogochukwu.

A lot of people spend lots of money on technicians and engineers on small problems that they could have solved for themselves if they chose to seek out Information regarding the problem

This is so true, information as such helped me to fix my AC that could’ve taken a lots of money from me if I’ve hired a professional/technician.

Indeed our inputs are the determining factors to our outputs.

This is so true, information as such helped me to fix my AC that could’ve taken a lots of money from me if I’ve hired a professional/technician.

This is an example of what I am talking about, but it is more rampant with smartphones and laptop.

Thanks for reading and sharing your perspective

@ogochukwu

Thanks @ogochukwu

Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way

Wow beautiful natural photos..

Creativity takes time and it profits one to wait and nurture his talent as it would pay him at the end of the day.

Nice one boss

Steal like an Artist.

Joseph Schumpeter in entrepreneurship calls it creative destruction.

In recent times, I have come to honor one fact which is, "readers and leaders". Simple, but so true.

Bless you @ogochukwu

@kayceesuave