Creativity

In response to this blog post "3 Ways to Increase Your (and Your Child’s) Creativity", I commented:

I never told my parents this at the time, but I gave up on being artistic in kindergarten. We made "Indian" clay pots and to my eyes, my little pot was misshapen and ugly, while it seemed that everyone else's pots were delicate and lovely. I felt that I could not ever catch up, so I gave up.

I'm still trying to overcome that.
It's been 47 years and that self-doubt, that self-criticism, still holds me back.

I try to get around it. I have scrapbooked, both physically and digitally. I have used Photoshop and Illustrator to create and manipulate images. I used to draw, a little, back in high school, but would never show it off. I have written (well, you know that, you are reading my blog) fiction, nonfiction, columns, blog posts, talks that I have given at church, a eulogy for my mother.

And yet I still don't feel good enough to say "I am creative."

If you tell yourself something for decades, it's hard to get out of that mental rut.

Yet, that's exactly what I must do. Especially considering that Mom died of Alzheimer's.

I can't afford not to use my brain in every way possible. I have to keep trying new things. I have to keep learning. I have to stretch my brain cells because that's my best way to avoid or stave off mental deterioration.

I guess my point is that there are things out there that people can do, and if they don't get them right the first time, don't give up. Keep trying. You will find something that you can do, or you will learn to do something better than you did it before.

And for inspiration, watch this video, because not only can you be creative, you can learn new things in a reasonable amount of time:


The video is "The First 20 Hours - How to Learn Anything": Josh Kaufman at TEDxCSU. I love TED talks - they are usually inspiring, and even ones I don't necessarily agree with will make me think.

So I'm going to try this. I haven't yet decided exactly what I will do for my first 20-hour experiment. I have been thinking about NaNoWriMo again, although I'm not sure how writing a novel fits with the 20-hour learning. But that method of breaking things down into easier parts should be applicable to the novel-writing process.

So, we'll see. I will try to learn a new skill, or write a novel (which could be a learning process).

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