Seek Your Own Creative Path & Do Away With Structure (10 min read)

“Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear” [1]

The reason I am starting with this admittedly intense quote by Brené Brown is that there are many people who may reply, “I’m not creative”, or “I don’t have an active imagination so it would be a waste of energy even trying”. However, I will argue that, in saying this, you are denying the value of your unique perspective and are limiting your ability as a result.

A likely factor that leads you to this conclusion is that you are placing too much importance on results. Pure creativity isn’t graded by anyone, so you don’t need to have the best imagination; you already have what you need to start the process, to let your creativity flow. As long as you follow where your curiosity and intuition takes you and you’re willing to get messy without getting disheartened, the potential for generating deeper meaning is limitless.

I believe, as the humans in the Greek myths thought, that the power of the divine flows through us when we’re creative, bridging the gap between our earthly perspective and the other-worldly realm. Just as the humans in the Greek myths believed, when channelling this force through creative means, whether it be writing, painting, dancing, singing or any other creative endeavour, we pay tribute to the gods with impressive shows of ability. By utilising the creative power of your soul, you can produce infinite possibilities that place you in the upper echelon of human performance. Working with your own essence and expressing it in physical form allows you to leave your own print on the world that can’t be replicated. Therefore, harnessing your own creativity can effectively aid you in carving your own path that is wholly unique to you and not a replica of someone else’s vision.

In this article, I will discuss both what is needed to boost creativity, as well as the thought processes that obstruct our creativity. After this, I will reinstate why cultivating a creative side brings much needed balance, allowing you to clearly see where to best direct your energy. I will begin with a discussion on what can obstruct our creativity.

A rigid structure obstructs creativity

If you try to structure your creativity, you are missing the point by attempting to put constraints on something that is boundless. In other words, you are trying to make art, which is subjective, into a concrete science.

Whatever you are creating, whether it is a painting or a model village, it has to be pure fun, curious, playful exploration that is fuelled by passion: a sandbox to play in that brings you as close to the pure play you experienced as a child.  

When a child plays, they are not planning; they are fully locked into the moment because their maximal interest in the activity lets them give all their energy to the activity.

If, counter to this, you have an exact time to sit down and try to be creative without inspiration or interest fuelling you, it will be detrimental to producing quality because you’re trying to force it. Inevitably, you will get stuck in a rut and writer’s block will sink in. When you feel as if you have hit a wall, this is a sign that you need to go back to the research stage to find more breadcrumbs, i.e. things that connect with you.

When we are in the pocket of a creative moment, we are not thinking

When Quentin Tarantino was asked how he puts all his references/influences into his work, he replied that it isn’t intentional. When he’s writing, he’s in the stream of consciousness, operating solely on instinct and intuition with all of his references packed into the ideas that feel right at the time. Only when he's done and steps back does he see what influences he drew from.

This is why the concept of post-match interviews with athletes is so absurd because the interviewer asks the player to describe why they did what they did in the game, and the player can never formulate an in-depth answer because what they did was instinctive and they weren’t actively thinking of what to do in the moment.

In the context of creating, this automatic, instinctual space is where we should strive towards. This concept was described perfectly in the science-fiction film Ex Machina, when one of the characters is discussing the Jackson Pollock painting below.

Pollock is known for painting what is called “automatic art”. The strokes are neither deliberate nor random, but “some place in between”. This leads the character to ask his acquaintance, “What if Pollock had reversed the chain and instead of making art without thinking he says I can’t paint anything unless I know exactly why I’m doing it?. What would have happened?”. To which the acquaintance concedes that “[Pollock] never would have made a single mark”.

Overthinking blocks our creative instinct

Unfortunately, with our human nature to control everything, it is difficult to not overthink. However, when we control an outcome, we are restricting our creative muscle in pursuit of perfection. This is an impossible expectation which goes against our imperfect human nature.

Therefore, the preferable principle to follow is less is more. For example, say you’re a musician and you’re struggling to create a song. The problem is almost always over complication; you are doing too much. Although it is always better to do less slowly, we can’t resist messing around aimlessly and forcing an outcome when we obsess over making it perfect. Doing less across the board then tends to produce more quality as you are allowing for ideas to come out naturally, as if it is an automatic response.

True understanding comes to you when you no longer need planning

Returning to what was mentioned previously, structure is at odds with creativity and following a guided plan can only get you so far. Of course, planning can be useful in the beginning of the creative process because it gives you a direction to head in. If there isn’t a destination, you would struggle to begin your journey and you’ll be aimless in your creative pursuit. However, you should learn to give up the constant planning once this need for outlining has been outgrown and be open-minded to the fluidity of your plans, and willing to adjust them based on the current moment.

If you feel as if you need to plan what you want to say and write on a given topic, this shows that you are not ready to talk about it. When discussing academia, the mathematician/writer Nassim Taleb went as far to say that “if the professor can’t do the lecture without needing to prepare, don’t attend. You should only teach what you’ve learned organically, if not, get a different job”. [2]  

Likewise, we do our best work when we're not thinking of what to say and it's flowing with no extra force, relying on our instinct of what ideas feel best to us in the moment. You must therefore be receptive to good ideas by being fluid, following where our mind organically takes us.

It follows, then, that understanding a topic can only be done if it is in good faith, learning in the way that suits your strengths and interests, and not following a preordained structure.

Unfortunately, most of our childhood is in direct opposition to this, with the school system inflicting a rigid structure on our learning in order to tackle the exhausting variety of subjects. Because there were so many topics that had to be learnt and crammed into your brain for exams, the only option was to memorise everything that may come up. Although this tactic may have been useful to ace an exam, it was not good for retaining the information after the fact. This demonstrates that if you are just repeating what you are taught, you are not learning anything other than how to memorise an arbitrary set of data.

Once you have broken free of these constraints, you must do away with structure and follow the information that interests you enough that it sticks in your brain through the spark of interest. What you mustn’t do is create a structure so that information can be artificially forced in.

If you are forcing anything to come to you, you lack belief and patience in the creative process. You must have belief in the ideas coming to you. All that matters is to be receptive to good ideas and let them in when they come knocking.

As Nietzsche wrote: “A thought comes when it wishes not when I wish”. [3]

Stop watching your thoughts

Watching your thoughts means being actively aware of what you’re thinking about. When you do this, you may think you are being active, but it is actually taking you out of the moment and preventing you from engaging with new ideas as they appear. This makes you an automaton who sits there passively watching his thoughts. As the saying goes, a watched pot never boils.

Paying too much attention to any thoughts, whether they are internal (from yourself) or external (from others), removes you from the solution, making you more confused.

This is why you should be weary of listening to other people’s advice about what you should do with a problem you’re facing as these are also thoughts whose source are external from the issue.

Inspiration from others is not sustainable; it fades and once it does, all you will be left to follow is an ambiguous structure with all of the creative juices stripped away. Therefore, it is on you and you only to navigate yourself along the right path using your intuition.

Let your intuition direct you

Intuition is inside all of us. It allows us to get a sense of things and locate the truth (your own truth, that is) of something. Like detectives, we explore and come up with something that satisfies our faculties.

In other words, we use our intuition to guide us towards one path and avoid another. Without intuition, we are blind.

The late director David Lynch uses an example of a painting to show how we perceive a thing.

Say there’s a painting in front of us. The painting itself never changes, but when a viewer comes up, a circle is created with you, the perceiver, the artist, and the art itself. By perceiving it on an emotional level, they become connected to the static painting, making their experience fluid.

This experience is different with every viewer and each person is going to have a different opinion and relationship with the art. It’s unique and, therefore, precious to them.

A painting may have affected you on an emotional level and you may go up to the artist and tell them that. Even though they had no concept of your existence when making the painting, somehow through your perspective, you have attached yourself to this static canvas that the artist created and laced it with your own experience to create a wholly unique context.

If the artist decided to create art based on a brief, with a specific audience in mind, they are restricting the reach of their art without a guarantee that they will even resonate. Even if it is an artist we love, we don’t like when they play it safe as for a piece to be memorable it must surprise us. It is far more impactful when we are won over by a piece of art after initially not understanding the artist’s intent. We respect them more for taking a risk at showing us a different perspective, one which we weren’t expecting.

When you play it safe creatively based on what you thought your primary audience enjoyed about your previous work, you are merely mimicking an older version of yourself, covering ground which has already been covered. Eventually this will become stale and your primary audience whose support you thought you could bank on, will lose interest  

Don’t mimic another’s path

Re-hashing your own ideas is one thing, but copying another’s successful creation is even less ambitious.

Whether you are early in the creative process and haven’t yet proved yourself or are a veteran in the field who has lost their spark, it is always tempting to mimic those who have proven to be successful.

However, you will never have access to their full story of what they had to do to get this success. It is not even possible to mimic your older self’s successes as there are countless micro-decisions which you made along the way, ones which you may not have considered as important as they were in shaping your previous success.

In mimicking anything, you are doubting your own ability and as a result are inclined to seek safety in guidance from others, following their lead rather than your own.

It is easier, and thus more tempting, to follow in someone else’s footsteps than it is to follow your own path because finding a new path for yourself can be isolating and daunting. When falling prey to this temptation, it is crucial to frame this decision as a form of cowardice and a degradation of your own gift.

Your ideas will remain unoriginal if you choose to live a life of active consumption of entertainment instead of bringing your own ideas to the table. By overconsuming art, you live through other people’s creations without experiencing the joy of creating yourself. In doing this, you are inevitably going to be influenced by these other works and the voices and, as a result, your identity will be filed down to align with a common group.

In opposition to this existence, Dostoyevsky once said that “to go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird”. [4] Birds travel in groups rather than finding their own way because there is safety in numbers. However, in carving out our own creative path, we must utilise the higher level of consciousness that we have been given and follow our own interests and not someone else’s.

How do you know whether you are on someone else’s creative path?

With the passage of time obscuring our memory of events, it is not always clear how we ended up with our chosen hobby or career.

Some say a good way of knowing if you are on someone else’s path is if you are being praised for your decisions before you make them. In Nietzsche’s words, “so long as you are praised, believe that you are not yet on your own course but that of another”. [5] Compliments are the most persuasive because they give you an inflated sense of self-importance. If you value these too much, then insults will feel even more scathing as they attack the identity that you have manufactured.

If you can remember back to when you started the creative pursuit, reflect on if you were inspired by another during a moment of indecision. It is possible that you latched onto another’s path to avoid the daunting task of finding what your own creative purpose is.

If you are prone to being led, remember that no one can fix your conflict but you as it is in your head and only you know what’s in there. In Kapil Gupta’s words, “all conflict is self-conflict” and seeking external help just adds unnecessary confusion, delaying you from being able to reflect on what you should do with your life. [6]

So, to boost your creativity:

·       Follow your own intuition and instinct like a detective

·       Be receptive to good ideas and let them in

·       Let your inner voice guide you to what interests you and what your strengths are

·       Stop planning your every move and learn to let go of thinking when creating

·       Don’t rush

·       Trust your own judgement

·       Don’t pay too much attention to external voices

Closing Thoughts

If after reading this, you still believe that there is no desire for you to be creative, that’s okay. It would be hypocritical of me to say that one way of thinking is wrong whilst in the same breath claiming that you know yourself best. It is okay to do what you want and you may have other priorities which you place above creative endeavours. However, returning to the first quote, “unused creativity doesn’t just disappear” and you should be cognisant of the consequences that neglecting your creativity can cause, so you should always re-discover your creative spark when you find yourself in a slump.

As the psychologist Marie-Louise Franz writes:

"People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the wrong situation". [7]

Finding something you enjoy doing then allows you to clearly see what is worth your time, so you know where to put your energy. When we find a worthy cause to put our energy into, we forget about time and fall into it, so much so that it becomes more than just a hobby but a ritual that produces meaning, in turn making your inner voice more at peace.

As Brown writes:

"The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art, cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing – it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning". [8]

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Thanks for reading!

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Brandon Bartlett

Newel of Knowledge Writer

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Sources:

[1&8] Brené Brown – The Gifts of Imperfection (2010)

[2] Nassim Taleb - https://thebrowserquotes.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-knowledge/

[3] Friedrich Nietzsche – Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

[4] Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment Part 4, Chapter 4

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche - Human all too Human, Chapter 80

[6] Naval – Podcast Overcoming

[7] Marie-Louise Von Franz – Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales

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