Try Again, try again

I recently read some, let’s say articles, about Creativity. These articles were of a wide-range; about what creativity is, the myths, many innovations, and even a letter from Einstein. They somewhat made me question my own creativity. Basically, the first main thing I took was that in order to be as creative as you want, originality is key. In my poems, I’m “P-Creative.” Psychologically, I’m creative because I’ve never written anything that said the exact same thing. However, my goal has since changed… I want to write things that are new, never heard of today or yesterday. 

Which, will relate to the myths in creativity. The article basically spoke of the same strategy my high school yelled in the classrooms and whispered in the bathrooms: REVISION. Artists revise and make prototypes, although not always purposely. Take the creator of mobiles – and for the young audience I don’t mean cell phones – Alexander Calder. He rewired wires into animals, and eventually created moving sculptures. With revision comes inspiration. He became inspired with the life he saw around his own – which is what any great artist, like myself, does. 

Another big subject in the article was how artists change up their styles. When I read that, I couldn’t help but laugh – even though my roommate was in the room. The reason is, I see it happen all the time. Styles change because of different trends, different waves. The main place I see this happen is the music I listen to. Either the rappers don’t want to start sounding boring to their fans or, they just want to experiment with something new and hope it’s creative. Lil’ Wayne made a Rock album… using auto-tune. I don’t know of any Rock artists that use auto-tune so that was a first for me. Jay-Z and Kanye West, at somewhat different times, went from their lyrics being coated in socialist concepts, to braggadocious anthems. Some artists use change to make their work more positive, like Earl Sweatshirt. His debut was primarily misogynistic while is sophomore is more introspective and less crude. It can be said that for the artists that undergo these types of changes, they are “P-Creative” as well but, it would be harder to be “H-Creative,” which is historically – something that no one has done before or thought of before. The people are think of something first, those might be the innovators of our society.

I learned that, to be innovative is to not always create or build something, like the parachute or concave lens. Innovation can lead to discoveries. Hormones were discovered by two English physiologists. No one else had thought that chemicals in one part of the body could be sent through the bloodstream to another part and have a big effect. Another innovation was the use of logarithms to solve long and complex mathematical multiplications. Three of the easiest logarithms to spot would be the 10^x, “log” or “ln” on a calculator. The last two account for trigonometry problems to be solved a little easier in math classes.

I must say though, the letter than Einstein wrote gave me the most difficulty to follow. The biggest concern was that he was addressing questions, but, nowhere that I could see were any questions. I did attempt to find the questions but, Google only gave me links to the one and only Blogspot. What I can grasp, though, somewhat opposes what 11^th grade AP English teacher used to say, “Write yourself into a thought or an idea.” Einstein claims that words have no great function in the mind. I believe that’s wrong (and I only believe he is wrong if that is the correct interpretation and so the rest of my argument is based entirely on that). Words allow us to connect the thoughts, ideas, inspirations and experiences in our lives. Sure there are pictures, but, poets, authors and writers are artists too. That’s where the whole cliché of a “pen or pencil is a writer’s paintbrush” comes from. However, I do agree with him that we are not always conscious when we receive our ideas – or even just always conscious all the time. The sub-consciousness just might be the better consciousness… for all us artists.