by P.R.Viswanathan
[box]What exactly does creativity mean in our lives? Is it something that is restricted only to the arts? P.R.Viswanathan shares some interesting thoughts on creativity and the joy of creation.[/box]One of the most profound statements on creativity occurs in Somerset Maugham’s “The Moon and Sixpence”. Charles Strickland is a dull stockbroker in London till age forty when he suddenly ups and runs away to Tahiti to paint. He indulges his passion with abandon. At the same time, he shows himself up to be one of the most inconsiderate and self-centered of human beings. Some years after his death, the author visits Tahiti to gather material to write about the artist. He is astonished to find among the people of Tahiti, particularly one Captain Brunot, a kind of sympathy and understanding of the artist, which was totally missing back home in London.
This is how Captain Brunot explains his great feeling for the artist:
“Did I not tell you that I, too, in my way was an artist? I realized in myself the same desire as animated him. But whereas his medium was paint, mine has been life.”
One can be an artist simply in the way one lives. And creativity! What shall we say of creativity? It spans art and science. It can manifest itself in any aspect of life. It is the overarching theme of all life. You read about Edison’s invention of the incandescent lamp or of Bell’s of the telephone and revel in their creativity. Or you look at R K Laxman’s cartoon early morning and it makes your day because he has made just that perfect comment on the state of affairs that was lurking in a million minds like yours, unexpressed.
What is creativity? Here is a definition given by one Rollo May in “The Courage to Create”. It is quoted in the piece entitled “What is Creativity?” by Linda Naiman that I found on the internet:
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being…creativity requires passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and myths. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness-ecstasy.”
The outstanding feature of all creativity is that it occurs in a moment; it is sudden and unexpected, like a flash of lightning. It lasts no more than a few seconds but then it illuminates every dark nook in the vicinity. Men have sought to create divisions between science and art, portraying art as dealing with the emotions, the work of erratic genius, while science is all reason and system. But think about it: the scientist, most often, stumbles upon a creation like Roentgen did on the X-ray. A scientist may grapple with a problem, work towards a creation most systematically with step-by-step reasoning but the solution or the creation happens in a flash – in a moment of “eureka”. All the prior reasoning then seems irrelevant. And yet again, wonder of wonders, that prior process, that slogging, the systematic reasoning, the 98 per cent perspiration that Edison talked of, is an essential prelude to the moment of flash, the 2 per cent inspiration.
Why does creativity – in others and even more in ourselves – give us that pure, unadulterated joy as nothing else can? I have often wondered. The answer, I believe, is that in every act of creation – big or small, ranging from a scientific invention to the perfect solution that hits you to a seemingly intractable problem in office or the telling repartee – you see a revelation in yourself of something of the Creator himself. The difference, ironically, is that you take the creations of the Ultimate Creator for granted because you were born in their midst – air and water and vegetation and life itself. But moments of genius, of creation, in even the most creative amongst us, are rare. What you feel then is sheer fulfillment for you have attained the highest form of self-expression. And that is a feeling worth any sacrifice.
Pic : blentley – http://www.flickr.com/photos/blentley/
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