When someone says ‘creative people’ we immediately think of people like Pablo Picasso, Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Coco Chanel… I mean, we think of artists who are renowned and specialized in one particular profession. That’s the type of value that our society applauds and rewards. So, if we decide we want to follow the creative path, specialization should be our goal. But that’s nothing but an erratic social stereotype that has nothing to do with our real potential as human beings. There are unlimited ways to be creative, so why should we limit ourselves to one way for the rest of our lives?
And what is more important: there’s no human way not to be creative. Neuroscience knows today that we constantly use both teh rational and creative hemispheres of the brain, especially when we make decisions and solve any sort of problem, so creativity is at work all the time. We are all born with this unique gift to be creative in multiple and unlimited ways. But our Western culture and educative system prunes our creative branches and then puts them into little labeled boxes.
Do you remember being asked ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’. What a terrible castration for a kid who cannot even conceive of limits to his beautiful and multiple stream of creation and experimentation!
You don’t need to be an artist, a designer, a writer or a movie director to be creative. Scientists, educators, cooks, computer programmers, handymen, homemakers and house hubbies… everyone in their essence are creative people. Every time you solve a problem, be small or big, you’re being creative. Just think of how many creative things you do in a day and that will give you the answer to if you are a creative person.
When Naomi and I started conceiving of the first tools for multi-creativity, we didn’t think of an specific type of creative person because we are all creative people. There are no creative and non creative people. There are people who are conscious about their creative skills and nurture them and people who are not. We would like that our Epokka tools help everyone to develop their creativity, no matter the way they use them.
That’s why we decided to start with simple materials that could be used by all kinds of creative activities: design, science, architecture, poetry, philosophy, art, thoughts, and, to summarize; anything inventive and constructive that you can think of.
In my next post I will talk about how can you embrace multi-creativity and will share with you a story about Naomi’s and my long journey to reach where we are now.
—
Credits:
Video still from promo video by Naomi Niles and Koldo Barroso, featuring Epokka’s TRIO Idea Book.
