The “Special Sauce” of Creativity : Being a Pig-Headed Idiot
Everyone has those friends that are “the creative types”. You know these people, the connoisseurs of Pinterest and DIY forums — people who have their own Etsy storefronts and indie bands. Surely by no means could you ever be as inventive as they, because all you can do is hope to replicate a recipe for brownies and not burn them to death.
Creativity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some people say “I’m not creative”, and that is akin to taking a truckload of dirt and dropping it on a bonfire. No one creates out of the self-deprecation of doubt. I think it’s one of the few cases where unabated confidence and idiocy can create a great thing. Let’s think of that for a moment shall we?
Let’s look at guitar recordings. Today, we have a vast array of sounds from super clean and bright to so much distortion it just sounds like white noise. Put yourself in the 1950’s and consider that electric guitar sounded a specific way — clean. Just like Violin or Cello, there was a specific sound for the instrument, and if you played it differently it would be “incorrect” by most critics and listeners. Early blues guitarists wanted to emulate the gruff sounds of the singers so they started to intentionally misuse guitar amplifiers. They’d turn up the volume, purposely damage equipment, or use higher gain pickups just to get a unique sound. They were confident that what they were doing was making the sound better. And they honestly were dumb for breaking the norms and risking their recording contracts and reputations by making a sound that may or may not have been accepted. Luckily, their experiments and accidents were widely praised and pushed the limits of what was acceptable.
There are disruptions like these in all industries, from computer input devices to pocket knives. Many creations just are not successful. For every reason for something to be successful, there are probably 100 reasons for why it should fail. Creators cannot let that fear of failure cripple them into complacency. We have to do dumb stuff repeatedly in order to progress.
Exercise 1 : The stupid straight line
An exercise you can perform to get used to failing hard is to try to free-hand a straight line. Go ahead and do it. Grab a ruler or piece of paper and then compare your line to the straight edge. Now try that 20 times and see if you get better. The key here is to know that your task is very difficult but you do it anyway to get better. No matter how steady your hand, eventually you will be able to draw a line (at least a small segment) that is perfectly straight.
Exercise 2: Share your line-drawings with friends or social media
Oh, you thought that I was going to ignore the fact that you couldn’t draw a straight line. Well that’s okay, now you need to build confidence by showing the world that you can do something a bunch of times terribly. The fact that all people feel like there’s an impossible perfection to be achieved is what keeps us from producing things that others may find awesome, but that we know just aren’t perfect. I’m a self-professing Christian and I believe that we’re just not perfect and won’t be on Earth, but that shouldn’t keep us from living and doing our best — whether that’s drawing lines, making a masterpiece concerto, or a new toilet.
I believe people who are known as “creatives” just don’t have that part of the brain that says “it’s not good enough, don’t share it”. They are confident enough to push through seeming imperfection and dumb enough to think it’s worth sharing. Just like me publishing this post, that I’m certain could have been written, organized, and presented much better. But I did it anyway because I think it’s worthwhile.
