On Being Creative

The mental health benefits

Being creative and having an active imagination is psychologically healthy for us, according to recent research from the University of North Carolina. This research shows that people engaged in some sort of creative endeavour were far more likely to be happy.

In fact, the more time spent on creative pursuits the happier people were and, perhaps crucially, while working on something creative they were more open to new ideas and experiences.

Strangely a lot of the world’s greatest creative minds often say they have no idea how they arrived at whatever it was they created, it just appeared as if by some kind of magic.

Scientists have said their theories just appeared, and Goethe is known to have been shocked when one of his novels suddenly arrived on the pages in front of him; he felt he had no input at all, the book just flowed out of him.

Creativity is of course a huge and important part of life for a lot of us.

But being creative has its detractors.

People who are creative, people with highly active imaginations, can be treated with suspicion, as if highly developed creative powers are symptomatic of some sort of subversive intention, either that or an inherent madness.

There is a certain type who might ask what is the use of creativity? Does it produce food or clothing, does it build a structure that can be used for something, does it create wealth?

The only kind of creativity some people see as being relevant and valuable is the creation of buildings, bridges and roads and other structures that are eminently visible and obvious in their construction and their meaning; there is no ambiguity in a building, no chance of interpretation.

I suppose creativity can produce wealth if you’re part of that tiny percentage that makes money from what you do. Maybe you sell a painting or perhaps you write a book that gets published; if you’re a musician you could give a concert.

But a huge amount of creativity is done for the pure pleasure of exercising an enquiring mind with no thought for material gain, and of course Medium is the perfect vehicle for this.

Creativity is a mindset that some just don’t get, and they can be frightened by it. Some people get concerned by wild ideas and imaginative works that defy normality, that ask questions of the way things are done, of what is understood as normal, the status quo.

But when I read my Home Page on Medium and see such a wild variation of ideas and the myriad ways people have approached them, their imaginations stretching to the widest limits, that’s a great pleasure for me.

It’s my kind of world.