When creativity is drained, what do you do?

Julie Seedorf, Something About Nothing

Published Monday, October 5, 2009

Louise Nevelson is quoted in “Awe Manac” by Jill Bodonsky as saying “If you have creative work, you don’t have age or time.”

I have to agree with that statement. Many days when I am writing I lose track of time. Time seems to melt away when I am involved in a creative activity.

Wikipedia starts to describe creativity as a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something.

We all know someone we view as wonderfully creative. I am in awe of my friend who creates beautiful pieces of stained-glass wonderment. My classmate from high school, Charlotte Laxen, is a watercolor artist and paints landscapes so beautiful that you feel like you are experiencing a visit to the countryside that she loves in France.

There is other creativity that I admire. I have mentioned before that I have an imaginary farm on FarmTown and Farmville on Facebook with my friends. If you visit my farm and you visit the farms of some of my friends, there are a great difference. My farm is a scattered array of trees, flowers, buildings and, of course, crops. My friends’ farms are beautifully planned and arranged the way I would imagine they would be if they had farms in real life. It takes creativity to do that.

Let’s not forget the creativity of mothers and fathers. I watch in wonder as parents help their children learn and play. Parents create memories for their children to pass down to their children. Parents find creative ways to help their children learn. Parents find creative ways to support their children. I wonder if you asked those parents if they had creativity if they would answer yes.

Living our lives each day takes creativity to navigate the ups and downs and curves and pathways that we encounter.

Maybe we have a tendency to think of creativity as something artsy, cute and clever. I prefer to start thinking of creativity as simply the art of making something. What do we make in our lives? We make conversation. We make dinner, well some of you do. We make jokes. We make a surprise visit to someone.

My point is that if I asked a few people if they were creative they would probably reply with a no. Each person is unique, and in that uniqueness there is a spark of creativity. It can be whatever you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be someone else’s view of creative. Your creative, unique self has something that you do that makes you lose track of time. I would hope everyone has something in their life that they enjoy doing that melts away the time for them and lets them wallow in their uniqueness, even if it is sitting on a sidewalk and counting the ants marching into their hole.

I must admit most of the time I don’t think of myself as a creative person. However, each week when I write this column, I guess it is a creative endeavor. Sometimes they are flops such as the week a reader told me that I didn’t need to write about my relatives coming to dinner. This person has his or her relatives over often and do not feel the need to write about it. That is fine they felt that way. Sometimes when I am writing, I don’t feel too creative. That seems to be what is happening today.

There are many things that can affect your creativity. Illness, work overload, tiredness and juggling too many details can affect crazy kinds of creativity. It is important for us to remember that even if you are not feeling creative but are still doing an activity that melts away the time, you are being creative.

If you think this column is not very informative, not very creative and kind of boring it’s OK. I have lost track of time writing this so this is my calm part of creative.

“Oh no, the cake for tonight’s Bible study is burning!”

That is what happens when I am being creative. But I had my calm and now I can deal with the problem. Take the time this week to find that part of yourself that renews you and lets time melt away because you are being creative.

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” — Alan Alda

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net or visit her blog at www.justalittlefluff.blogspot.com.

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