I’m fascinated by the idea of creativity.
The fact that someone can, out of nothing, develop an idea, solution, something beautiful, something different than the norm, is quite honestly unbelievable. Its obviously more than just synapses firing in our brains, if that was the case then finding a formula to creativity would be far to easy and essentially render the whole process void. But because there is an element of mystery and unexplainable matter to it people devote themselves to dreaming unknown dreams, mulling over thoughts in hopes that in a moment of divinity the “light bulb” will flicker on and emit creativity. This is why designers design, why writers write, why philosophers philosophize.
Equally important to the creative process is the idea of inspiration.
Inspiration fuels creativity. Without it, creativity in my opinion would have stopped a long time ago. Why strive for better if the norm is satisfactory? We are continually improving upon what is to attain, what is better, and more beautiful.
Unlike creativity, inspiration is something we have an active role in. We can seek it out any time we want from anything we want. There are times when inspiration finds us, but more often then not its a case of us discovering it.
Filmmaker James Cameron spoke at this year’s TED Conference and mentioned his love for the ocean and how he has learned so much about his own life from exploring it’s seemingly endless depths. He said, “Nature’s imagination is so boundless compared to our own human imagination.”
I love this because he is drawing inspiration from something limitless.
The problem is see is that too often we submerse ourselves in shallow, limited areas of inspiration. We look at things that are accessible, understandable, and comfortable. The danger in this is we will eventually bear the fruit of limited inspiration. Once we have explored the depths of whatever it is we are finding our inspiration in, we will stop creating and start reproducing that which we are familiar with and understand fully. For example, I know that designers are constantly exploring the web for inspiration. We look at blogs and portfolios and youtube videos, which is great and necessary, but at some point we are looking at the same things, over and over again, and drawing nothing new or challenging to the way we think.
What I propose is that we seek out limitless things. We find inspiration in things that have unlimited depths to be explored, and we explore them. The benefit will consequently be inspiration from something much bigger than ourselves and will therefore push us to create better and more beautiful things that what we know now.
