The Creative Genius in Us All

I mentioned in my last post, that there is something that we need, besides skill, to be able to express the creativity that is within us. Well, I take it back. That statement doesn't make any sense. You can't express creativity. What in the world does that mean? I should go back and change my post. What I meant to say is that there is something that we need in order to be able to creatively think and to express ourselves.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe that is what crafts are for - expressing creativity - to show that we can create! But what's the point of expressing creativity anyway? We all have it. I think what we are really looking to do is to creatively think and express ourselves.  Right?

I hadn't put much thought into it before, so I have to clarify it in my head before I can go on.

So here it goes:

Creativity - bringing something into existence

"we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty...Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before" - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

so...

Creative Thinking - taking thoughts and feeling and organizing them into something of beauty or truth.

"Creativity has been defined as seeing ideas in new relationships, as discovering or producing something new through one’s own thinking. All creativeness lies within the creator, for creation is a qualitative experience of the highest order, and it brings into activity the whole person." -Mabel Jones Gabbott

and so...

Creative Expression - Sharing those ideas in a way that will allow others to experience your unique perspective (through art, music, words, experiments, actions, etc).

"The artist expresses himself or herself in universal symbols, images, sounds, and feelings. The spiritually successful artist has the unique opportunity to present feelings, opinions, ideas, and perspective of eternity in symbols that can be universally understood. Because all things are spiritual, only the process of obedience, prayer, and inspiration can yield sufficient guidance to make a difference in whatever creative method or opportunity is available to us. Inspired art speaks in the language of eternity, teaching things to the heart that the eyes and ears can never understand." -M. Russell Ballard

I think maybe now I can get to my point.

Like I said before, we need skills in order to share ourselves in a way that people will understand what we are sharing. However, we also need the ability to make connections in the truth that surrounds us in order to put our unique spin on what we see.

Thus creativity involves both a process and a result. It springs out of our seeing possibilities that we have not seen before and out of seeing connections between patches of truth and beauty and responding to them in ways we have not done before. Feelings that lead to poetry, mental imagery that leads to painting, and pondering that gives birth to prose are but examples. -Neal A. Maxwell

Several people see a cloud pass by. Someone stops to look and is inspired by a connection that she sees. She wants you to stop and notice so she writes:

A Cloud withdrew from the Sky
Superior Glory be
But that Cloud and its Auxiliaries
Are forever lost to me

Had I but further scanned
Had I secured the Glow
In an Hermetic Memory
It had availed me now.

Never to pass the Angel
With a glance and a Bow
Till I am firm in Heaven
Is my intention now.
-Emily Dickinson

Several people walk by a pond, too busy to look. Someone stops and notices the light and sky reflected in the water. He wants to share what he sees.

And then we stop our busy lives to reflect.  We catch a glimpse of the truth surrounding us.

Galileo watched the stars, then he learned of an eyeglass maker who put two glass lenses in a tube to see things farther away.  He took this new technology, improved it and saw the moons of jupiter.

How do we see these possibilities? How do we make these connections?  By answering this, we will know how to truly develop the creative genius in each one of us.

What do you think?  I have taken too long writing this post and I need to get ready for church so I'll have save what I think for later.

In the meantime, here is another great quote for you:

"When by wise self-management we are creative, then we mortals taste what Pascal called “the dignity of causality,” the capacity to cause that which had not existed in quite that way before! Something pertaining to truth and beauty occurs that would not have happened quite that way without us! Thus as “agents unto” ourselves we use the power that is in us to do good, but also to do it well, whether our creativity involves the use of our voice, our hands, our muscles, or our conceptual powers.

True creativity, as it reflects our capacity to see or to produce something in a new way, represents a restructuring that carries our individual imprint and uniqueness. Such can be equally true of the inventor and the painter, of the pianist as well as the poet." - Neil A. Maxwell