It is my belief that everyone in the world is creative. "Wait," you say, "I am definitely NOT creative. Where did you get such a hare-brained idea anyway?" And I would say, perhaps you have too narrow of a definition of creativity.
God is the Creator God
Our God is the great Creator God. His creativity and imagination are boundless. We can see the proof of this no matter where we look. The sunsets that no artist can compare with, the mighty rivers and the great redwood trees, to the tiniest of microscopic ocean life or the dust that makes up the rings of Saturn, on every scale the world over is evidence of His creative designs. The variety of creation testifies to his creative nature.
Even if we just look at one thing such as people: He has created such vast differences in hair color, skin color, body type. Yet, even in identical twins like my own, they have differences in appearance, slight differences in DNA, and different personalities. They, while to almost all appearances to humans are the same, remain amazingly unique individuals. I establish this fact, because if our great Creator God is creative, and if we are created in His image, then we too are creative.
We Desire to Create
If all people are creative, but not all people enjoy arts and crafts then creativity must be something more. For some people they are creative in the way that most of us think, they may be professional artists, home designers, or writers. Others are creative, but in a different way. Creative in thought, which enables them to invent new machines, comprehend new complex scientific theorems, or makes them visionaries in their own fields. Then there is creativity on an every day scale, which is what lets us both think of solutions to problems, and create spaces we love.
Creativity is art. It is taking pictures, painting, making videos for YouTube. Creativity is music with it's various varieties and styles. It is dance and the feelings from mournful to evocative that it brings forth. Creativity is writing whether that's the humorous shows we find on tv or the reading we do for fun, or the information we gather. But more than those things creativity is a mind set, a way of thinking. It is how we turn problems around in our minds looking for different angles and different solutions. It is how we plan and make back-up plans for the back-up plans. It is how we comprehend the world around us. It is an expression of individuality. It can be seen in the teacher who crafts a lesson plan to reach the minds of the students, while being stretched and conformed to state standards.
Creativity is a form of Communication
As an expression of individuality, creativity evokes emotion and provokes thought. It is the way that we order our own world and that we then reach out to others. Who has never seen a painting that moved them, heard music that inspired them, or felt the wonder of grasping an idea for the first time?
As such, creativity doesn't have to be polished to be creative. My mother doesn't think she is creative. Over the years, she has had my dad help with everything from our school projects to drawing her figures to use for bulletin boards at school. But she was endlessly creative in raising 4 kids, in reaching out to us, teaching us, and disciplining us. She was creative in the kitchen with her cooking and baking, and she expressed her love for us in the items that she cross stitched and crocheted for us. Creativity isn't about crafts and art, though it can include those things. It's also not about performing to perfection, it is about expressing something.
One of the reasons I got on Instagram in the first place was to share my own creative endeavors as well as to look for ideas for myself. I have seen all sorts of planner types - no white space, minimalistic, pastels, washi centric, stickers galore, pen only. There is no one type of creative planner even among creative planners. Our ideas and pursuits are as unique as we each are. Take a look on Instagram at #horsedrawings and you'll find amazingly detailed pencil sketches, watercolor designs that lack the detail of pencil, yet flow like a moving horse, photo collages that resemble a horse from a distance, while each image contains it's own picture, and finally the drawings of a 5 year old. Each communicates a message. It's all creative, because it's not about how skilled the completed piece is but the expression of creativity that matters.
In Conclusion
I hope you can see that creativity is more than just those things we typically consider. It is your ability to solve problems and the way that we do it. It's the way we have to be creative when we budget or clever in defusing a child's meltdown. It's how we teach our children, often in ways they don't even recognize as being taught. It's what we do when we analyze the movies we watched as we talk with others, or plan a gift for someone's birthday. My husband has even argued my sense of organization is a type of creativity. Any method that you use to express individuality, or any way that you make decisions in your daily life is a form of creativity.
If creativity is indeed so much more than a beautiful picture of a lighthouse at sunset, then I hope you will search for it in your own life. While your creativity may not look like mine, and while it may take the form of a skillfully written piece of code or a loving approach to a child in your classroom who is struggling, I hope you will express it. I hope you will find things both in our every day posts and in our creative endeavors that will inspire you to find the outlet for your own creativity. Perhaps, you'll even look at creativity differently now and look for the ways you express it in your own life. After all if there is so much beauty in the world shouldn't it be shared? Shouldn't we seek it out? We hope to look for that beauty and share that creativity with you. Whether it's something as small as my planner spreads on Mondays, or as vast as the western deserts at sunset, or as deep as the way we reach out to our children and draw out the best in them. I hope you will be inspired.
Thank you so much for the reminder! I needed that!!