With a concept of justice in hand, we step back to consider suffering, the bane of our existence as living beings. We have identified our aim, to seek, promote and realize the well-being of living beings. Yet suffering persists, and characterizes much of the human condition. Our understanding of it is an important weapon in our struggle against it. As…
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Value for Sunday of Week 36 in the season of Fulfillment
Being Creative
Creativity is an engine of life, which supplies power to drive forward.
- Anybody can play weird, that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple—awesomely simple—that’s creativity. [Charles Mingus]
- Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. [attributed to Erich Fromm]
- Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. [Edward de Bono]
Humans did not invent the concept of round but many thousands of years ago, they created wheels. People did not create fire but we have found ways to create fires. One discovery led to another, and eventually people were driving automobiles and piloting spaceships. Every innovation, including the computer chip, has been a product of creativity. Creativity is essential to science and art. It spawns technologies, and “is a vital skill for the future of work”.
The subject of creativity has generated extensive research and vast bodies of scholarship. The point of this essay is not to make you an expert on the subject of creativity – though you could become an expert on creativity if you followed and studied all of the linked literature in this section – but to point out its essential role in human life as we know it, and present an overview of creativity.
“Creativity is a complex, multi-faceted concept encompassing a variety of related aspects, abilities, properties and behaviours.” Though no consensus definition has emerged, probably owing to its complexity, “there seems to be general agreement that creativity involves the production of novel and useful ideas and products”. “The standard definition is bipartite: Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness.” Beyond that, creativity has been defined, among other ways, as:
- “the capability to catch original and valuable ideas and solutions”;
- “a process from the decision to be creative to idea generation and evaluation to product completion”;
- “the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual”;
- “the interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined in a certain social context”;
- “a process that leads to a novel and useful outcome (an idea, product, or expression)”;
- “internal attention constrained by a generative goal”;
- “the ability to generate novel associations that are adaptive in some way”;
- “a dynamic interplay between the brain’s memory and control systems”;
- “optimal novelty and maximal positive effect”.
“Creativity is related to both cognition and emotion, which are the two major mental processes, interacting with each other to form psychological processes.” Theories about creativity fall into these categories:
- Developmental theories of creativity explore how creativity develops over a lifetime;
- Psychometric theories focus on cognitive abilities;
- Economic theories analyze the economic drivers behind creativity;
- Componential process theory holds that creativity arises from expertise, cognitive ability, and motivation;
- Cognitive theories focus on the mental operations of creativity;
- Problem-solving theory focuses on divergence and convergence in solving problems;
- Problem-finding focuses on finding problems instead of drawing conclusions too quickly;
- Evolutionary (see also here) models analyze creativity’s roots in our evolutionary history;
- Typological models categorize creativity based on certain characteristics; and
- Systems: “The Systems Model argues that creativity is a social construction constituted by the confluence of three different sources: (1) the cultural matrix of information (Domain); (2) individuals who bring some novel change in the domain (Person); and (3) a group of gatekeepers who either accept or reject the novelty (Field)”.
Creativity’s components can be grouped in seven categories, with their respective components in each category:
- Underlying inborn attributes:
- Underlying attained attributes
- Domain competence (“broad distinguishable areas of competence that in the aggregate constitute a general descriptive framework for a profession”): “. . . creativity generally does require a certain level of expertise . . .” in the domain where creativity is shown (“However, considerable evidence supports the idea that creativity has both specific and general components, and that the level of specificity-generality changes with the social context and as one develops through childhood into adulthood.”);
- Independence and freedom;
- Emotion:
- Emotional involvement, including enthusiasm;
- Cognitive (thinking):
- Detail: highly creative people tend to absorb and process more environmental cues that average people – for example, if they spend a couple minutes in a room, they may recall 20 of the objects in the room, whereas an average person will recall 5 of them (an example of this is Leonardo da Vinci);
- Divergent thinking (“the ability to generate creative ideas by combining diverse types of information”): “Divergent thinking (DT) is considered a key process of creativity. It is supported by different mental processes, ranging from executive functions to cognitive styles”;
- Experimental design thinking;
- Flexibility of thought;
- General intellect: “Intelligence and creativity are known to be correlated constructs suggesting that they share a common cognitive basis”;
- Imagination;
- Generating multiple ideas;
- Subconscious processing: in a study, “individuals who had unconsciously thought about ideas were better in selecting their most creative idea”;
- Thinking and evaluation;
- Emotion and cognitive combined:
- Active:
- Global (emotion, thought and action combined):
- Originality (however, various disciplines operationalize the connection in their own ways);
- Persistence/tenacity;
- Risk-taking, and a willingness to fail: creative people accept“productive failure”, i.e., failed efforts from which they learn and advance.
Many theories of creativity have been proposed, including:
- Four P framework (person, product, process and pres) (Person: understanding the traits, characteristics or attributes of the creative person; Process: describing the operations or stages of thinking used in the creative process; Press: examining the nature of situations and its context within the creative press (or environment) and the Product: identifying outcomes and qualities of creative products);
- Five A framework (actors, audiences, actions, artifacts and affordances) proposes that “creative action takes place not ‘inside’ individual creators but ‘in between’ actors and their environment”;
- Four C model of creativity “traces creative development from mini-c (personal creativity) to little-c (everyday creativity) to Pro-c (expert creativity) to Big-C (genius creativity)”;
- Amusement Park theoretical model “weaves together both domain-general and domain-specific factors supporting creative performance with a hierarchical structure. There are four levels of the model—Initial Requirements, General Thematic Areas, Domains, and Microdomains—that describe increasing levels of domain specificity”;
- Componential Model explores creativity in organizations, and has been updated;
- Investment Theory of Creativity “comprises 6 resources for creativity – intellectual processes, knowledge, intellectual style, personality, motivation, and environmental context”;
- Triangular Theory of Creativity: “. . . creative individuals defy the crowd (other people and their conscious beliefs), themselves (the individual), and/or the Zeitgeist (the shared and often unconscious worldview of their field)”;
- Multivariate approach: “Our study can be located in a multivariate approach to creativity, by taking into account as well cognitive as personality factors in relationship to creative potential”;
- Piirito’s Pyramid is “a model which takes into account genetics, personality, IQ, talent, and environmental influences that are essential in developing talent”;
- Evolving Systems Approach: “The creative person is unique, developmental change is multidirectional, and the creative person is an evolving system”;
- Reciprocal Model of the Creative Process: “creators’ general motivational orientations . . . are translated into specific motivational goals”;
- Matrix Model: “In this paper, we organize past and present theories and models of creativity by using a new conceptual framework—the creativity matrix—with the aim of highlighting the dimensions of creativity we know a lot about and those we tend to either ignore or find difficult to study. This matrix is formed by bringing together a developmental model of creativity (the 4 C’s) and a structural one (the 5 A’s).”;
- Structure of Intellect Model: “intelligence is viewed as comprising operations, contents, and products. There are 6 kinds of operations (cognition, memory recording, memory retention, divergent production, convergent production, evaluation), 6 kinds of products (units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, and implications), and 5 kinds of contents (visual, auditory, symbolic, semantic, behavioral).”;
- Triangular Theory: “. . . a triangular theory of giftedness that conceptualizes creativity largely as an attitude toward life rather than as ability based”, it is “a triangular theory of giftedness that conceptualizes creativity largely as an attitude toward life rather than as ability based”;
- Triarchic Theory: “. . . creative individuals defy the crowd (other people and their conscious beliefs), themselves (the individual), and/or the Zeitgeist (the shared and often unconscious worldview of their field).”;
- Modified Theory of Successful Intelligence “suggests an alternative notion of successful intelligence that expands on conventional notions of intelligence”;
- Geneplore (generate-explore) Model: “The suggestion is that creativity often involves a strategy of an initial generation phase, without strong goal control, which produces “preinventive” structures that are then interpreted during an exploratory phase to assess what could be done with the structure”;
- Blind Variation and Selective Retention (updated): “Simonton uses the term ‘blindness’ to mean (1) that variants are generated by chance, random or ‘pseudo-random’ processes typically occurring below the threshold of awareness, and (2) the creator has no subjective certainty about whether an idea is a step in the direction of the final creative product”;
- Associate Theory: “. . . an elaborate model that aimed to explain how creative ideas are generated and why creative people are more likely to have creative ideas”.
Factors shaping the creative mind have been identified as: “. . . (1) creative cognition and the associated neural systems in human and animal models; (2) creative drives such as mood states, emotion, motivation and regulatory focus and how their interactions could shape the creative performance; and (3) the impacts of three central neuromodulator systems, i.e., DA, NE, and 5-HT, on the interplay between creative cognition and creative drives.”
The domains of creativity may be seen as “artistic originality, scientific discovery, and comic inspiration”. Scientists can learn from and expand their scientific creativity by drawing on the arts.
“Creativity is part and parcel of human history and enables (groups of) individuals to adapt to and shape their natural and social surroundings.” “Having a creative mind is one of the gateways for achieving fabulous success and remarkable progress in professional, personal and social life.” It frees and engages the mind, appears to enhance a sense of meaning in life, and facilitates problem solving.
Creativity is also central to societal well-being. “The ability to creatively solve problems enabled early humans to survive and laid the foundation for the creative imagination that has resulted in our modern society.” “In a creative ecosystem, creative agency exists everywhere all the time in the form of potential provocations. It is a latent capacity to imagine, invent, improvise, and adapt beyond the seeming limitations of one’s present circumstances . . .”
People are drawn to creativity because it encourages them to be free. Yet many people stifle their creativity. For that reason, creativity is an ideal as well as a daily practice.
Real
True Narratives
- . . . Leonardo observed details that most of us overlook. He drew and described the effect of the column of water hitting the surface, the waves that emanate from the impact, the percussion of the water in the pool, the movement of the air bubbles that are submerged by the falling water, and the way the bubbles pop into floral-like rosettes when the reach the surface. He noticed that eddies containing bubbles are short-lived because they dissipate as the bubbles rise . . . . Try noticing all that when you next fill a sink. [Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster, 2017), p. 433.]
- Johann Sebastian Bach: “Bach is a clear example of someone who thrived on presenting huge challenges to himself. For 27 years in Leipzig, he was charged every week with getting a group of 12-to-18-year-old boys to sing in tune, with solid rhythm, taste, and expression, to say nothing of trying to prevent them from stealing silverware, throwing bread rolls, and worrying about the well-being of his own 20 children. If he had chosen to perform repertoire by other composers or written music that was easier to learn, he would have made his own life much easier. . . But he couldn't bring himself to do that.”
- William Shakespeare: “. . . research has yielded some information on Shakespeare's mixing of emotions to enhance impact.”
- Marie Curie: “The most striking aspect of Curie’s life, and a continuing theme in the book, is her persistent devotion to her research. She was not deterred by physical or personal hardships. Her notable qualities were a love of science, high intelligence, the strong conviction that her work would provide important benefits for humanity, and the ability to persevere in light of the difficulties she faced.”
- Galileo Galilei: “Of special importance was how Galileo was able to create a domain-specific expertise where no such expertise previously existed—in part by exploiting his extensive knowledge and skill in the visual arts.”
- Michalengeolo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni: “Michelangelo, perhaps the greatest artist the world has produced, wasn’t a child prodigy like Mozart. He learned on the job.”
Book narratives:
- Daniel J. Boorstin, The Creators: A History of Heroes in the Imagination (Random House, 1992).
- Paul Johnson, Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney (HarperCollins, 2006).
- Martin Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).
- Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity (Little, Brown & Company, 2008).
- Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017): “contains reflections on the evolution of life and the evolution of ideas, on the workings of memory, the process of consciousness, and the nature of creativity, alongside examinations of his own mishearings and misrememberings and his experience of illness.”
- Michael Sims, Arthur and Sherlock: Conan Doyle and the Creation of Holmes (Bloomsbury, 2017). “How Conan Doyle Landed on Sherlock Holmes and Why He’s Stayed With Us”
- Lydia Davis, Essays One (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019): Davis relates how she prepares her essays.
- Michael Pollan, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (The Penguin Press, 2013). “ . . . the richness of his own engagement with cooking refutes his own nostalgia.”
- Stacey Erasmo, The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry (Graywolf Press, 2024) is about how people sustain creativity over time.
Biographies of Isaac Newton:
- Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
- James Gleick, Isaac Newton (Pantheon, 2003).
- Edward Dolnick, The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society & the Birth of the Modern World (Harper, 2011).
Technical and Analytical Readings
- James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
- Robert J. Sternberg, ed., Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
- Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko and Jerome L. Singer, eds., Creativity: From Potential to Realization (American Psychological Association, 2004).
- James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg, eds., The International Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
- R. Keith Sawyer, Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (Oxford University Press, 2006).
- Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (Harper-Collins 1996).
- Robert Olen Butler, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction (Grove Press, 2005).
- Robert W. Weisberg, Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts (Wiley, 2006).
- Nassir Ghaemi, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness (The Penguin Press, 2011): "A specialist in bipolar disorder explores whether madness improves political leadership." The author concludes: "The best crisis leaders are either mentally ill or mentally abnormal."The best crisis leaders are either mentally ill or mentally abnormal. The author's conclusion supports the data that show that highly creative people think unconventionally, and that this is a valuable aspect of leadership in crisis.
- Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012): a popular science of creativity, “a collection of interesting stories and studies to ponder and research further . . . but make your own careful choices about whether to believe what it says about the science of creativity”.
Journals on creativity:
- Creativity Research Journal
- The Journal of Creative Behavior
- Thinking Skills and Creativity
- Journal of Creativity
- The Journal of Creative Behavior
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
- Indie Game: The Movie: illustrating that creativity comes in many packages
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Novels:
- Tom Lichtenheld, Bridget’s Beret (Henry Holt & Co., 2010).
- Edward Carey, The Swallowed Man: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021): “. . . a riff on the entwined themes of fatherhood and creative spark. . .”
- Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021): “Lockwood is a modern word witch, her writing splendid and sordid by turns. Her prose rambles from animal gags to dirty talk to infinitely beautiful meditations on the nature of perception that deflate and turn absurd before they can turn philosophical.”
- Niven Govinden, Diary of a Film: A Novel (Dialogue Books, 2021): “For Maestro, the struggle to reconcile ambition with artistic vision is never-ending. In this regard he differs sharply from Cosima, the author of a novel, long out of print, that Maestro tracks down, reads and decides he must use as the basis for his next film.”
- Vincenzo Latronico, Perfection: A Novel (New York Review Books, 2025), “explores the creative capital of Europe in its heyday.”
Poetry
Vex not thou the poet’s mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet’s mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;
Bright as light, and clear as wind.
[from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Poet’s Mind”]
Other poems:
- Valery Yaklovich Bryusov, “Creative Work”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Music is a creative endeavor. Some works of music are derivative, and some performances are mundane; however, every great composer and musician is a creative genius. Therefore, any great work of music, and any great performance, would well illustrate the human value of creativity. Here are some anthologies, as a predicate to some contemporary music that focuses on creativity itself.
- J. Peter Burkholder & Claude V. Palisca, The Norton Anthology of Western Music, Volume 1: Ancient to Baroque (Eighth Edition, W.W. Norton & Company 2019).
- J. Peter Burkholder & Claude V. Palisca, The Norton Anthology of Western Music, Volume 2: Classic to Romantic (Eighth Edition, W.W. Norton & Company 2019).
- J. Peter Burkholder & Claude V. Palisca, The Norton Anthology of Western Music, Volume 3: The Twentieth Century and After (Eighth Edition, W.W. Norton & Company 2019).
- Carl Parrish, ed., A Treasury of Early Music: Masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque Era (Dover Publications, 2012).
- Carl Parrish & John F. Ohl, Masterpieces of Music Before 1750: An Anthology of Musical Examples from Gregorian Chant to J.S. Bach (W.W. Norton, 1974).
- Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz (Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Terry E. Miller & Andrew Shahriari, World Music: A Global Journey (Fifth Edition, Routledge, 2020).
A jazz label, Creative Improvised Music Projects, focuses on the creative aspect of improvised (free) jazz. Each of the discs they have released serves as an example of creativity in music. Here are a few of the artists in their stable (not all releases are on the CIMP label):
- Adam Lane, with his playlists;
- Andrew Lamb, with his playlists;
- Burton Greene, with his playlists;
- Chris Kelsey, with his playlists;
- David Haney, with his playlists;
- Dominic Duval, with his playlists, his playlists with Joe McPhee, and his playlists with the C.T. String Quartet;
- Elliott Levin, with his playlists;
- Ernie Krivda, with his playlists;
- Frank Lowe, with his playlists;
- Jay Rosen, with his playlists;
- Jimmy Bennington, with his playlists;
- Joe McPhee, with his playlists;
- Kahil El’Zabar, with his playlists;
- Lou Grassi, with his playlists;
- Mark Whitecage, with his playlists;
- Michael Bisio, with his playlists;
- Odean Pope, with his playlists; and
- Steve Swell, with his playlists.
Ornette Coleman stands out as a champion of free jazz and musical experimentation. “Coleman's work ranged from dissonance and atonality to liberal use of electronic accompaniment in his ensembles, as well as the engagement of various ethnic influences and elements from around the globe.” Here are links to his releases; a documentary film; and live in Montreal in 1988.
Conductor Václav Talich once remarked: “In art there is no such thing as a goal definitively achieved. Artistic growth is a series of errors, and a search that lasts as long as the artist’s life.” This willingness to experiment opens a door to creativity. Here are links to Talich’s playlists, a documentary film, and a video of his conducting.
In legend, the Hindustani late night classical raag, Raga Megh is capable of producing rain. “Megh” means “cloud”. Usually the raag is performed during the Monsoon season. Performances are by Mohi Baha'ud'din Dagan, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Kushal Das and Amir Khan.
Creative tension:
- Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea composed her ballet “Le Rouge et la Noire” (The Red the Black) (2000) (approx. 76-137’) to evoke a collision between Neoclassical ballet and contemporary dance. The ballet is drawn from Stendahl’s novel of the same name.
Albums:
- Steven Halpern, “Enhancing Creativity” (1987) (56’)
- Michael Wollny, Émilie Parisien, Tim Lefebvre & Christian Lillinger, "XXXX" (2021) (45’): this is as creative a musical endeavor as we are likely to hear.
- Joni Mitchell, “Court and Spark” (1973) (37’): “Perhaps the most important break for Mitchell, with the development of Court And Spark, was her embrace of jazz musicians: in this instance, Tom Scott and LA Express.”
- Elton John, “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” (1975) (63’): “The album not only showcases Elton John's unparalleled musicality and storytelling capabilities but also offers a personal journey that will resonate deeply with listeners who appreciate concept albums and literal lyrical meaning.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- David Bowie, "Andy Warhol" (lyrics)
- The Rolling Stones, "She's a Rainbow" (lyrics)
- Elton John, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" (lyrics)
- Lana Del Rey, "Salvatore" (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Editors of Phaidon, 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity Across Time and Space (Phaidon Press, 2007).
Film and Stage
- The Last Metro: the creativity is in the film making, not in its characters
- A Little Princess: the young heroine’s individuality wins out over calamity and a muggle-headmistress’ attempts to quash it.
