Creativity... what is it and where does it come from?

Over at Watermark, sb poet asks her readers to introduce themselves, offering three questions to start the ball rolling:

• What do you do that you consider creative? Is it easy, or difficult for you?
• What supports -- or undermines -- your creativity?
• If you could give a friend one piece of creative inspiration (advice, or a poem, or a painting, or a book, or whatever occurs to you) what would it be?

Those are pretty tough questions for introductory paragraphs, especially for soliciting comments -- and especially the first one. It's my understanding that blogging manners usually include not hogging the comment section, keeping your remarks brief and to the point.

Nevertheless, they're darned good questions. As somebody whose self-esteem has forever been wrapped up in how much and how well I produce creative works, and, in return, my creativity is shackled to my self-esteem, I'd have to my view of creativity is any outlet for something not rigidly mundane.

The trouble is, sometimes, the things one does for creative outlets can also serve as destructive forces.

I draw. I paint -- both watercolors and walls. I garden. I photograph. I collect and display certain otherwise useless objects (postcards, glow-in-the-dark crap, injun stuff, old books, cats, other stuff). I cook. I sew. I write.

I blog.

None of this do I see as my high art form. Somewhere deep inside me there may very well be a Rembrandt or a Whitman or whatever, but he seems to be embarrassed to be seen with me, so far. Mostly, I have the level of artistic creativity in my head that they seem to use for writing standard television sitcoms. (Hey -- it was new once!) Still, creativity is the act of letting yourself be not afraid to make your own vision of the universe sing even the smallest song for itself. I let the hounds out to bay at the moon even when there is no moon.

As one of my instructors often said, never use paint straight from the tube.

Being creative is fairly easy. It's the follow-through that kills ya.

I'm bipolar. I have a hard time finishing anything if it's not done by the time I finish one of my manic phases. Ideas I have -- I have them by the gross daily. I used to keep post-it notes and sketches all over my walls, until I saw a show where one character (a paranoid schizophrenic accused of murder) did the same, and I realized how nuts it was to do that. (Now, I keep it to only a few at a time. And, only near the bathroom mirror, for the "scare factor".)

There is such a thing as too much creativity, after all. It's that bottle of liquor on the top shelf of the parents' cabinet, the stuff that sells for more than you could earn in a week. You know it's heady, you know it tastes extraordinary, and you know, intellectually, that it should be sipped only until you get a little bit warm inside. Still, some will drink, straight from the bottle, until they can't function.

Now, I blog.

Of course, I don't post most of my inventive stuff up here -- then everybody would understand how really truly nuts I get, some days, and we can't have that, can we? In fact, I blog so that my brain doesn't take its little vacations without me and come back with those great tans it always gets. I blog to keep a regimen, to control the creative bent, to provide structure and a modicum of direction for myself.

For those who are less in need of inhibitors than I (well, that would be everybody, now, wouldn't it?), or rather, for those who could use enticement to start their genesis machines, I mostly pay attention. It's "here, read this -- you'll get a kick out of some of the ideas," or "let's go visit this park," or "let's shop at the art supplies store," or "wanna come play in my garden?" I have to start them up.

But it's funny. Most people I know have little trouble finding creative outlets, have no trouble at all coming up with ideas. Their problem is that they're afraid others will think the work is "amateurish" or "silly". My question to them is, "What's wrong with that?"

Everybody was an amateur at one time. It's the love of the art and activity which makes an amateur.

"Silly" makes the smiles for which life is worth living.

And so I blog.