Creativity (part 1)- Do you Know What is Inside of You?

*Alternative title; "NORMAL IS ONLY A SETTING ON A WASHING MACHINE"

I'm done with school now, at least for a week, and I finally have time to write on here. This will be a long post as it has been a long time coming, brewing in my head for weeks.

This post will be about creativity.

Isn't almost every post on this blog about creativity in one way or another? Probably yes. If my middle name wasn't already Kiss, it probably be Creativity. I am a very creative person. Anyone who has known me for more than 5 minutes knows that (dang, anyone who looks at me for more that 5 seconds knows it!). Without artsyness I go crazy. Truly. My constant rebellion against normal is a huge part of who I am.

But I have been thinking about creativity more so than normal lately. A couple weeks back we were talking about it in my psyc class and I had to give a presentation on people who display amazing amounts of creativity. The presentation could only be 5 minutes long, but in creating it I did a great deal of thinking about creative people.

Who are the creative people in the world? YOU are. That's who.

This is where you will begin the mental argument with me that not every one is creative. Blah blah Blah. I disagree. I didn't say ARTISTIC. I said CREATIVE. I believe that very human being has some amount of creativity in them because we were created by and in the image of a creative God. He who created me created the whole world from scratch (ever thought about that? Whenever I make something I have to start with something else. Some supply or material. When God created everything He started with absolutely nothing. That amazes me! If I had been charged with creating the world with nothing to start with and nothing to base my ideas on I would have not come up with much. Or anything. ) He is my Father and THE CREATOR; I am His daughter, so I create. Creativity is in my spiritual DNA.

You're arguing with me again, aren't you? You are. I just know it. Stop it. Just stop.

I'm not talking about creativity and everyone having it in the sense that we all can paint, draw, and had an A in high school art class. I'm not sure what the actual definition of creativity, but I don't think it is synonymous with artistic. Creativity, at least to me, is the ability to think outside of the box. Better yet, to refuse to acknowledge there is a box.  Creativity is not acknowledging the "normal" as acceptable. Creativity is that which does not fit in. Creativity is looking at something that anyone can look at, and seeing it differently.

If you give me a blank page of paper, I am likely to write something, because that is what I do. Might not be good, but I will write anyway.  If I give my little brother a piece of paper he will fold it into an elaborate paper air plane. If I give my friend S.L a piece of paper she would likely draw on it. Some of my friends would be more likely to write song lyrics on the page. What would you do with it?

I have several friends who are passionate about painting, and find their artistic expression on canvas. (Me? The only painting I do is that which involves splattering). Anyone can look at a canvas. Anyone can pop into an art store and buy one. The creativity is what a person DOES with the canvas.  If I gave a canvas to my friends T, L, A, or S (initials) they would take some paint and make something beautiful, because their creative minds see not a blank canvas but a potential piece of art.

But if I gave the same canvases to a group of mathematical, analytical, entrepreneurial, business people they probably wouldn't have the same vision to create something with paints upon it. So are they just not creative?

No.They are creative. They just are not painters.

Scientists are creative. Science wouldn't be useful if people weren't constantly coming up with new things. That is called history.

Mathematicians are creative (I know... I know...). But the use of math within science, or something like engineering requires creativity. 

Any entrepreneur is creative. They have vision. They see a problem, or a potential-holding business venture that no one else see, and they make it happen. They think outside of the box.

The most successful business people are those who think outside of what has already been thought; who dream bigger dreams and think greater thoughts than the less successful people. Their success has come because they did something different. Those who aren't willing to think creatively and instead keep doing what everyone else is doing are very likely to get the same result that everyone else did.

I think each of us has the ability to be incredibly creative, but in different ways. (I write and make stuff. What about you?). I think each person, Christian or not, is creative. Look at some of the people in the media living like hell. They are sure creative, just to their own glory and not God's (more on that later). Personally, I think Christians should be the world's MOST CREATIVE people, because we know who are Creator is and we know that we are made to be like Him!

Each of us has such potential. There is so much creativity inside everyone that is never being released! People are so caught up in the "normal" that often they don't think broadly enough about what is possible if "normal" is challenged. I'm not just talking about uses for paint and paper (which are fantastic), but how long are things like cancer going to be "normal?" Are gas prices climbing towards $5 "normal"; oil crisis, what about that? Are children homeless and starving in other countries "normal"? What about sex trafficking, is that just "normal" too? How about how perverted and filthy (secular) music is? Movie content? I don't think the books being written for young adults are "normal" at all!

So many pieces of art, so many inventions, new business ideas, solutions to worldwide problems, things that have never been done or made before are INSIDE OF YOU!

I don't know about you, but that gets me fired up and inspired to make something. Do something. Be something.And in doing that and releasing that creative potential we are glorifying God! We are being who He made us to be and becoming more like Him!

To keep this post from being 19 miles long I'll stop here. But I've got more coming. In the next part of this rant on creativity I want to talk about it specifically in relation to the Kingdom of God. How we can use it...or how we aren't. That post coming soon!



*phew. It felt so good to write something that wasn't academic, didn't need MLA citations, and wasn't going to be graded!