- Quantum physics
- how vocal chords make people sing
- how my boyfriend can remember every different type of car on the road and identify them by sight
- what language pets think in (if they think)
- why people use shingles on their roofs
- how language and writing were invented
- why people kiss (seriously, what is so goddamn romantic about smushing your lips against someone else's or licking their tongue? I just don't get it.)
- how people decided what to eat. From this follows wanting to know why we know to eat (Who thought, let's put this random substance in our mouth and chew?)
- what language deaf people think in/how they think
- why people think babies and little animals are cute
- what blind kids do in school when they're being taught the colours
However, there is one thing that I really wish I could understand. Aside from all the questions that seem to pop into my head at the most inopportune time (e.g. "I wonder how moles grow on people's faces," "who invented icing?", "why did Bob Marley have dreadlocks? Who invented those, anyway?", "Why do people drink rotten grapes? Who decided that was a good idea?", and, the most pressing as of recently, "Why did they discontinue coloured ketchup?") the one that has bothered me for the longest time is a little more serious than the others. What's really been bothering me, and I wish I could understand, is how creativity started.
This may sound like a dumb question. But, if you think about it, it makes sense. People say that creativity is when you take what you've seen before and change them just a slight bit to make this idea into something new. But if Person Y takes components of Person X's creation, then Person Z does the same from Person Y's creation and this continues, where did Person X get his ideas from? He didn't have a person to get inspiration from.
Since the changing of ideas is really all that can be hypothesized about creativity, how exactly can one suppose that the creative process started?
You can applaud a person for their delicious cake, but who decided to put things into a hot place and see what tasty treats resulted? How does this happen?
It probably all happened in The Beginning. But I seriously doubt that God/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Allah/Other Religious Figure put people on earth and handed them an instruction manual. Is the desire to create innate in our minds? Are we inspired by what we see? How do people make the jump between seeing something in nature, like a leaf floating, to creating something extraordinary, like a flying machine (also known as an airplane)?
Sometimes, when I sit down to write (i.e. right now), I get struck by the urge to create something that nobody has ever done before. I want to make people scream WOW THAT GIRL IS SO TALENTED or HOLY MOLY MACARONI BATMAN! I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT BEFORE! but don't know how. This is when I wonder how people create. I know how people create, so then I think about big inventions, then I think about olden times, and, before I know it, I'm thinking about Person X and his talented mind.
Maybe if I were smart enough to understand how Person X created creativity, I wouldn't be sitting here writing my essay almost a week ahead of time.
If I still can't figure it out, I'll start the next essay so I don't feel so stupid and I can talk about something I actually know about.
Creativity comes from practice, I have found in my personal experience.
ReplyDeleteAt first, you spew out ideas that are really conventional and pretty much just someone else's ideas with a few details changed. Then you submit your creative idea for scrutiny (preferably by someone else) who gives you feedback. Then you refine the idea.
After a couple years, due to the insight and experience gained from the feedback, you can spew out the creative ideas more quickly and reliably, while at the same time having them be more original :P
the first thing that jumps to my mind is the theory of natural selection and random behaviour modifications.
ReplyDeletesay bird A normally eats blueberries but decides to randomly try to eat a red berry. red berries are poisonous so bird A dies. bird A was creative, but in a problematic way
on the other hand, bird A's brother might instinctively eat purple berries, which happen to be delicious and better for the bird, compared to blueberries. bird A's brother has a better chance of survival and as a result is more likely to reproduce. bird A's brother's offspring is more likely to have the gene that makes birds eat the superior purple berry.
i know this isn't exactly the way evolution and genetics work, but i think you get the picture.
the way i see it, creativity is random. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.