It seems that like everything in life, different people all have different understandings of what they believe creativity is to them. There is no way of saying one is entirely right or wrong, as each person has a different method to channeling their own individual creativity within.
One theory I found quite interesting was Sigmund Freud’s explanation of creativity as being a conflict between one’s sexual urges and what is socially accepted. Pretty much Freud presents that everyone has sexual urges; however a creative person can accept those stimulated fantasies and elaborate on them while an uncreative person instead represses them. Maybe Freud just had nothing but sex on his mind his whole life. If this statement was true, we would be living in a very sexual tense and provocative world. Creative people would all be running around redirecting their sexual energy into all their creations through sexual connotations and symbols with cars, paintings, sculptures, toys, songs, fashion etc. This sounds a bit unlikely, however when you really look at the world everything is becoming sexualized to a certain point.
In Freud’s time this was most obviously presented through sculptures and painting of nude women. Now days clothing is becoming shorter, tighter and more revealing, song lyrics pretty much put it all out there, photography and movies more explicit then ever and now even cars becoming what we may call ‘sexy.’ There are even issues about children’s toys becoming too sexy. Are the new designers of ‘My Little Pony’ creatively releasing their sexual tension, into making the pony look flirtatious?
My Little Pony, being sexualized
Even Tinker Bell, Strawberry Shortcake, and many superheroes have now been modified to have some sort of sex appeal. I’m sure if Freud was still alive today, he would feel even stronger about his theory. Personally Freud’s theory has no connection with how I see creativity; however I can see some understandings behind his beliefs.
Most days I catch myself daydreaming, almost escaping from reality into a world where anything is creatively possible. Harold Rugg refers to this state of off-consciousness as the “centre of creative experience” (Davis, 2004). Rugg, as well as Lawrence Kubie, believe in the importance and power of preconscious, fringe conscious and off conscious thinking when being creative. Sometime when laying in bed, drifting between being awake and sleep I find myself in a preconscious state. It certainly is a place where my creativity will run wild!
To me, creativity is a mixture of nearly all theories. Our life experiences and history make us what we are and what we believe. I believe that when being creative you need a combination of skills which include knowledge, individual style, personality and so on. Training in your domain is also necessary in becoming knowledgeable and confident about your creative field. You may be a creative person but unfortunately maybe never recognised as one. As an individual you can make creativity whatever you want but as Howard Gardner said “Of the many individuals and works that undergo scrutiny by the field, only few are deemed worthy of sustained attention and evaluation…And of the works that are appreciated at a given historical moment, only a small subset are ever deemed to be creative” (Davis, 2004) !!
References
Davis, G. A. (2004). Definitions and Theories. Creativity is forever (pp. 58-73). (5th Ed.). USA: Kendell/Hunt. (.pdf / 3.29 mb)
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