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SOME MYTHS ABOUT CREATIVITY
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Almost all office mission statements nowadays emphasize the need for superior creative faculties to mold the workplace into near perfection. All human resources departments include creativity in their list of qualifications for hiring, even though the term 'creativity' is actually very vague, when we really dig deep into the matter. True, creativity is an all too encompassing, general and abstract term that it is difficult to define in a universal sense. It can only be more directly identified when placed against a specific concept, like advertising creativity or painting creativity.
However, despite all the attention given to this idea over the centuries, little is know about the daily innovative movements that have happened through the years. What caused them exactly? Where did the novel and breakthrough ideas spring from? What traits did the person who crafted them have in order to come up with such? what kind of environment supports this kind of innovative and imaginative thinking? How can it be born or stimulated?
In the quest toward finding the real meaning of creativity and what it entails, we are left with more questions.
Despite the presence of various schools of thought on the subject, however, there are misconceptions about creativity that are common to most people. We will discuss these so-called creativity myths in brief here.
1. Only the creative artist types have creativity
Man is born with the capacity to think rationally and the ability to make his own decisions. Given these, it certainly follows that he or she also has the power to create or to be creative. Creativity is not just limited to people who can mix colors and paint beautiful frescos, or those who can string words together to come up with moving scripts, stories and poetry. Anybody can be creative. The question lies not on whether we have it, but on how we cultivate it (which is a different story, altogether).
2. Pressure leads to creativity
The more the mind is pressured, the more it feels stifled and restricted. Creativity should not be bounded by time or space because it has to be able to move around freely. How can one's creative faculties come up with innovative ideas and concepts if they are confined to particular set of rules?
3. Competition is better than collaboration
Whether a certain endeavor is achieved via competition or via collaboration does not really matter. One isn't better than the other. The objective of creativity is think up and perform something novel, something that has never been done before, or something that would introduce new meaning to mundane things.
In sum, achieving creativity is done by coming to terms with one's limitations and learning to make the most out of the little that we have to come up with something that is new and extraordinary. It should not be limited by any factor, otherwise, it won't be able to spread its wings and grow.
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