I find it very natural to do what I love, because I choose to do what makes me happy. However after week sixes notes I began to think of how my creativity is a source that some people use more than others. The notion that money won’t bring happiness has been an incentive in my creative process, thus what I am able to produce is reflective on how I perceive the world rather than how someone wants me to see it. The flow of creativity in this week’s lecture was described as something someone has to naturally acquire in their personality.
The notion that some people are naturally more talented creatively is explained in the readings as the result of how someone is brought up. Children are wholly creative, they have no real sense of consequences or the foreseen risk, and so they are able to express and use their imagination to create their own world. (Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1996) Maybe to activate “creative flow” we have to resort back to a child-like state of mind? But is that a step backward?
I think children naturally do things they enjoy, compared to an Adult who will do things because they have to. The motivation is different, for a child it might be for the experience or the recognition of their parents, however an Adults action might be for the betterment of their family. And so this notion of creating because it makes you happy, is resorting back to the foundation of an individual’s connection to their main source of creativity. Going back without limitations, whether it is physical or mental to allow the flow of creativity which would be effortless because it would be a natural process.
When someone is doing something they love doing the task may become effortless, as it becomes an experience rather than a job. The balance between creating with unlimited possibilities versus the seeming limitations of skills, can seem like a constant contradiction. However there must be a reasonable amount of realism in the creative person to foresee their abilities to complete their creative ambitions. (Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1996) However in comparison, it could be said that having a limitation of skill would stunt pure creativity because the purely creative ideas would not always be realistically achievable. This limitation thus would conclude that there are many ways to interpret the balance between challenges and skills, but the important thing is that there is room to find out which one the creator wants to pursue.
References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The Flow of Creativity. Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention (pp. 107-126). New York: HarperCollins
Girl and Father (2009)[Digital image] Retrieved September 8, 2010, from http://www.girl.com.au/fresh-milk-photography-competition-winner.htm
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