Creativity: the use of imagination or original ideas to
create something; inventiveness (Oxford Dictionary). Applicable to all
the arts, and more.
Egocentrism.
When somebody thinks he is better than each and
everyone, creation becomes mere self-glorification, and it is not creative
anymore. It is the same difference between composing to serve the song and
composing to satisfy the musician.
There is simply too much of everything. This
(partially positive) democratization of creation lowered the general quality of
the products. Anybody can express himself, but not anybody is creative enough
to deserve a public.
The engine of creation is money. It is not art for
art’s sake, or the activity itself, or the feeling we got from it. The more
money we can make with an idea, the better: is this creativity?
“Pop culture addiction to its own past” Simon
Reynolds, Retromania). In fashion and music for example, we have a feeling that
everything has already been done, that in the past decades we had such good
products that the new ones have to be old to be good. This is partially true:
maybe we cannot change the ‘what’, but we can change the ‘how’.
Creators
Reason.
Human beings think (not all of them, and not always),
and by think I don’t mean the mere cerebral activity necessary to life. I mean
the activity of processing feelings and information, tell good from bad,
create.
"Aufklärung
ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit."
[Enlightenment is the exit of man from his self-caused intellectual minority.]
Immanuel Kant, Beantwortung
der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?
Progress is based on values, culture and invention.
Creativity is essential to culture and invention, therefore to the development
and well-being of society.
“Through our engagement in art we gain culture.
Culture makes us more human; elevates.”
Vivienne Westwood, Manifesto #2 – Active Resistance to
Propaganda
Art for art’s sake. We create because we enjoy the act
of creation and because we love ourselves and we want to be happy. We love the
products of creation as well, we love beauty, the beauty of shape and meaning
and soul.
“When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
We are curious, desirous to know and create. Knowledge
and culture alone are not enough, we have to use them to create, and if you are
always curious, you will be also desirous to create.
“fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.”
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.”
[you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow
virtue and knowledge.]
Dante, Divine
Comedy, Hell, Canto XXVI
Uniqueness. Thinking
that you are different from everybody else can be negative, but sometimes it is
not: when you express your difference through creativity.
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.”
[The poet resembles this prince of clouds
Who hunts the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
When exiled on the ground among the hoots
His giant wings prevent him from walking.]
Who hunts the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
When exiled on the ground among the hoots
His giant wings prevent him from walking.]
Charles Baudelaire, L’Albatross
…creativity in a new
form
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