One of the routines of someone living in the city, especially in Turkey, is to spend more time with cats and dogs. For example, on my street, we have a loving cat, a dog who thinks itself as the protector of the street, and people who feed them almost every year. I took this photo while I was walking on the street. It, I don’t know its gender, is very lovely and little talkative cat. I share this photo, but she/he turned around itself and shared its day with me. “ Living in the city is something like this,” it said and turned to the other side. Then added, “but this is my corner because this is sunny here.” Then I continued my way by saying, “See you again.” Then I don’t know what it did, but I imagine that it was enjoying the sun more.
I guess every time I want to draw something different, I find myself discovering something new. 🤓 The story of this picture is similar to this; I wanted to draw the sky, but I wanted it to be a little different. If I were drawing the sky, it might be a little more realistic. I was going to put my yellow window in later anyway. 🪟
The process of the work also reflects the message I want to give; New perspectives can provide freedom. 🌱✨ Until this idea, I was always looking at animals and plants in nature. But it never occurred to me to look at the sky. We always look at the sky to check the weather, to breathe and for many other reasons. In a way, it becomes our compass. 🗺️ It has a very important place in the relationship between nature and humans. It is our guide. 📍How would you describe the sky? What does it mean to you ? 🎈
I normally take photos for my nature and humans content. But this time I wanted to share the relationship between nature and humans as a drawing and asked myself the question “How can I draw? “. 🤓 I thought of drawing a building and an animal facing it. There had to be something that caught the animal’s attention too, something to eat! 🍴This is how the giraffe appeared, staring at an ivy-covered building. 🦒 How would you describe the relationship between nature and humans? 🌱
These words may be some of the most reflective of human nature. Even in the simplest way, it has a meaning. While cooking in our daily lives, we mix and cook more than one different ingredient. Or, while writing something, we draw/write something that is not there on the paper with the ink of the pen.
As you have read, creativity exists in some forms in every aspect of our lives. Even when we are not aware of it, we are surrounded by things we have created. Recently, I watched the “Creativity” episode of the “The Mind, Explained” documentary series on this very subject, and as a person who lives with drawings and colors, it inspired me a lot.
What is creativity according to the documentary?
Creativity isn’t as mystical and hard to find as we think, it’s a muscle. With practice, that muscle gets stronger and becomes part of our routine in a way that feels natural.
How to be creative?
As I just wrote, creativity gets stronger with practice. However, there is a very important question that helps the process here, “What if?”. If creativity is a formula, it is to combine things in different and new ways. This question also adds a sense of curiosity to the process.
You can see another creative point of view in improvisation. Improvisation performers increase their creativity with the “yes, and…” technique. With this technique, people listen to each other during improvisation, add their own thoughts, and a performance that is the common product of everyone is created. In other words, people work with each other in an environment that is open to communication and people don’t judge others.
The difference between creativity and imagination
Imagination is one of the starting points of creativity. Every creative person uses their imagination, but not every imaginative person can be creative. Focused imagination makes a person creative.
How to focus? What increases creativity?
First of all, keeping the sense of curiosity will start many things. Curiosity creates a field of exploration and, as a result, creativity. If I were to convert that into a shape as well, it would be a circle representing a loop. The more we explore, the more creative we become and strengthen this cycle. But it is also worth remembering that the creative process is not a straight up line. The important thing in this process is to stay determined and be joyous. Being determined moves you forward, while joy allows you to solve setbacks in the easiest way possible.
Apart from this, the technique we call sleeping on it is also very useful. To put it another way, it’s about letting things go according to flow and making more accurate observations. Sometimes this really means leaving it for the next day or other days, sometimes it can be daydreaming to hear yourself and see next possible steps better.
Finally, as I wrote above, focusing is one of the important ways to increase creativity. Curiosity and focus are one of the most important factors of the formula. If we don’t think about it and take steps, a thought that can fade. We have to work on it and define it. Of course, focusing methods can be a very personal thing. Therefore, ways that will make the creative journey enjoyable will always be useful. Accordingly, I would like to ask you one last question; What makes you joyous all the time? ✨
Note: Anyone who has watched the documentary and wants to watch it, please share your ideas with me via serraispahani@gmail.com or my Instagram profile.☺️
Nature has caught my attention lately. I believe that flowers, animals and other parts of nature significantly improve our quality of life. Recently, I watched a documentary about nature called “Kiss the Ground” on Netflix. I felt almost every emotion while watching it. While it clearly explains what wars and similar bad things take away from the world in the long run, it also tells us what solutions we can use as human beings. At the end of the documentary, I saw that nature can heal itself when we apply right agriculture methods.
What did I learn from the documentary?
Saving the world is easier than we think. Another name for soil is dirt and this dirt is vital. Humans are not that different from other animals when we look at ourselves as homosapiens. Of course, we are not the same because our evolution is different, but; we are made up of biologically similar things and we take some of our steps by listening to our primitive brain. At this point, it can be said that we are more connected to nature than we think. We even work on issues such as social inequality today due to applying wrong agriculture methods that affect nature.
When a farmer shared his business going down and meeting biodiversity, he used a word that summarizes the documentary which is biodiversity. In this article, I will not describe techniques as my aim is to share points that I liked. However, the solution is to grow more plants in the soil rather than just one type of plant. The important thing absorbing the carbon from the air rather than sending it upwards and creating global warming. One of the main causes of global climate change is the drying of the soil.
The second thing I learned is that there are beneficial techniques for this in the world right now. Many devoted people are giving seminars and training people, while others continue their work to revitalize the soil. It was hopeful to hear their experiences in the documentary.
Putting all these into consideration;
The documentary really affected me with many factors that I wrote above and couldn’t because there were many. Presenting the solution in the most simple way made it easier for me to watch. I saw that there are many ways to contribute to this culture and they are not less complicated than we assume.
Note: Anyone who has watched the documentary and wants to watch it, please share your ideas with me via serraispahani@gmail.com or Instagram.
You can watch a video about the documentary by clicking here;
Before I start the article, I want to ask you a question; What do you think is creativity? Which traits make a person creative?
While you are thinking about the answer, I am writing my answers here: In my opinion, creativity is being able to see and use our creative potential in more than one way.
To understand the subject from other angles, I did some more research and found another resource. Resource had a point of view that connected with other sources I had previously read and watched. Particularly, the creative process and the definition of being in the flow as the secret of happiness and the title of “Defining the Skill of the Future” were the parts that made me curious. (1)
Other than this definition, what made this article valuable?
Creativity make your ideas, imagination and dreams come true. When you are creative, you can see hidden patterns, make connections between things that are not normally relevant, and come up with new ideas. Creativity depends on creative thinking, which is part of the hard work but is connected more to creative problem solving. (2)
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says describes someone involved in the creative process as“ He can’t feel even that he’s hungry or tired, his body disappears, his identity disappears from his consciousness because he doesn’t have enough attention, like none of us do, to really do well something that requires a lot of concentration and at the same time to feel that he exists.”. (3)
Is creative thinking learned or is it in our nature?
Not being creative is something learned. People are born creative, but as they grow up they learn not to be. While we were told as children to reach for the stars, as we get older we begin to walk on a narrower path.
Therefore, if you see yourself as an uncreative adult, you can re-teach yourself to be creative and innovative and develop habits in this regard. (4)
What can you do other than going for a walk to improve your creativity?
• You can open yourself to new possibilities.
• You can maintain your curiosity about the world and your environment.
According to a study, 72% of our creative insights come in the shower. It may be new and fun information, but if you think we’re born creative anyway, you’re just removing the veil from something. (5)
Then I would like to ask you a question that you know the answer to but I think will be useful to reinforce the subject. Who is creative?
Everyone! But, there are certain characteristics of people who use their creativity fully. These characteristics are;
• “Asking questions
• Finding creative solutions
• Being cheerful
• Having heightened emotional sensitivity
• Being nonconforming
•Not being afraid to be seen as different or exhibiting unusual thoughts.” (6)
Wayne McIfGregor – the choreographer – is one of the people that I think is creative. McGregor shared his creative thinking methods through dancing in his TED talk. The part of his speech that inspired me the most was that his access to a local dance studio . He said “And that was the very first time that I found an opportunity to feel that I was able to express my own voice, and that’s what’s fueled me, then, to become a choreographer. I feel like I’ve got something to say and something to share.” (7)
One of the main points that draw attention in his speech is the technology of the body. Describing the body’s technology as “the most technologically literate thing that we have,” he says, “I’m absolutely obsessed with finding a way of communicating ideas through the body to audiences that might move them, touch them, help them think differently about things. ” (8)
Choreography for him is process of physical thinking process, a distributed cognitive process in which the body and mind work collectively. (9)
Physical thinking process and body
If there is a body, we can think physically. For example, we know when and how to hold a glass, with our inner perception. There may be times when we don’t realize it. It’s because we don’t think enough about our bodies, unless something goes wrong. This can be explained as giving more importance to our arm after injuring it by falling. (10)
But how do we begin to convey choreographic thinking and kinesthetic intelligence into ways we think about things more generally?
Every dance – thought or desire – has a starting point. Using this point, there are 3 ways;
1. To convey from body to body what we do with the external mental architecture studied and what the dancers hold in their memories for the choreographer.
2. We have a mental architecture and we share it, therefore, we solve a problem. To put it another way, using dancers to contemplate architectural objects – their shapes.
3. A task-based method where they can make their own decisions. Depicting a mental and vivid picture to enable the dancers to choose for themselves what to do. (11)
If I need to sum up the article in general;
Wayne McGregor’s speech was the starting point for this article and pushed me to do some more research on the subject. The part of the article I liked the most is being born creative and learned not to be as we grew up”. This is a definition that supports the definition I made at the beginning and you can see its reflection in other paragraphs of the article. (12) In addition to these, the concepts of being happy and in the flow (13) once again showed how valuable the subject is.
Serra İspahani 