When Einstein was asked how he made his great discoveries, he said, “by using the imagination.” Creativity, then, could be described as using the imagination to move forward. This is something that we all do, all the time. In other words, we are all creative.
There are two generally accepted forms of creativity:
1. Creating something from nothing
2. Giving a new character to something
Of the two, I personally prefer the second. ‘Giving birth’ to something is often too violent. I prefer to think of it as ‘giving life’ because the process is incremental. Creativity is most often slow work, even though an idea does sneak up on us every now and then. But in general, everything is based on something else. Very little is completely new. From the moment we are born, we are bombarded with experiences which ultimately inform our creativity.
Vehicle of Wisdom 