Don’t Let Creativity Happen to You
April 21st, 2011Worse Than Fool’s Gold
Today I saw someone talking about creativity on the Internet. I get so sick of this. It’s always an uncreative person, talking about something he or she has not personally experienced.
People talk about creativity as though it’s the answer to all of life’s problems, and they have the insane idea that it can be taught. They even pay people to teach it.
I’m creative. I’m so creative, it’s a problem. That means I can speak with authority here. Creativity is nearly worthless. It generally does not bring success. In fact, it usually produces distractions and tends to keep you from pursuing your goals.
It’s fun to be able write music or throw great recipes together or write things that impress people. It’s fun to be able to throw out clever things in conversation. But this isn’t what puts money in people’s bank accounts. A small percentage of creative people get rich from their gifts. Most are ignored or put to work and cheated by noncreative people who spent their lives learning practical things.
Creativity makes people jealous. It annoys them. It makes them resent you. It causes them to scheme and plot to prevent you from succeeding, or to get the benefit of what your mind produces.
If you’re not creative now, you never will be. Accept it and be glad. I don’t care what some idiot motivational speaker told you at a seminar your employer forced you to attend. Maybe you got all excited because your horizons were expanded to the point where you considered wearing brown shoes with a blue suit, or maybe you decided to get really crazy and put mustard on your scrambled eggs. That’s about as far as you’re going to get, barring a brain transplant, and it’s not real creativity. True creativity means a constant bombardment with original ideas that seem to come from outside your mind. You can’t get that at a seminar.
Don’t try to be creative. Work on things like self-discipline instead. Develop skills that generate income. Learn good manners; they will take you far. And of course, get right with God and develop a strong prayer life. Walk by faith, with God’s favor.
Whatever you do, don’t listen to teachers who encourage your kids’ creativity. Can you imagine a creature that is less creative than a teacher? They live secure lives, doing the same thing over and over for decades. They have no idea what life is like for creative people. If your kid is a really good fingerpainter or whatever, tell him to do that as a hobby while he works at a bank.
It amazes me that employers force people to try to be creative. Nothing could possibly be worse for your career. The way to succeed, in a typical office environment, is to make yourself indispensable and develop a reputation for making your superiors look good. If you’re creative, you will unbalance the machine, and it will try to expel you.
Remember Jerry Maguire? That was a pretty realistic scenario. You have a moment of creativity and lucidity, you point out the systematic flaws in your company, and the next thing you know, you’re fired. Jerry would have been much better off keeping his mouth shut. In the movie, he started a new company, and everyone loved him. In real life, he would have ended up waiting tables. No athlete would have gone near him, and employers would have considered him poison.
I’m grateful to God for making me creative, but I envy people who are steady, disciplined, and dependable. They’re the ones who make it big. Van Gogh’s brother was a rich art dealer. Van Gogh himself died a one-eared suicide. Who would you rather be?
Get over the notion that creativity will save you. On the whole, it should probably be considered a disability.
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:28 PM
I grew up surrounded by geniuses and the children of geniuses. I wouldn’t wish great genius or talent on anyone I cared about. The 16-18 hours per day the elite compulsively dedicate to their “art” invariably comes at the expense of interacting with those made in G-d’s image.
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Talents are a gift from G-d. The only value comes from learning to harness them for good and the only way to do that is with a moral compass. Moral compasses are only as flawless as their creator, ergo human-designed compasses always result with the holder in an ethical and/or spiritual ditch.
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:15 AM
Agreed.
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I happen to think that originality in music is overrated. People with fantasies of being a singer-songwriter get their hands on an instrument and hack away trying to produce something “original”, when they have beginner skills. It’s far more productive to choose other people’s music you like and learn to play it, until you have some chops. Most people can actually play at a much higher level of technique than they can achieve in their own compositions.
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A few people really do have music or poetry bubbling out of them all the time, and they can be musically original at any level of technique. But they often miss out on the joy of truly mastering an instrument.
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:16 AM
I remember meeting my mom’s fifth husband for the first time.
We were talking for a bit over a game of rummy and my mom was bragging on some of the stuff I had come up with.
He was a West Texas cowboy/electrician and very, very smart.
He looked at me and said, “It’s a curse, isn’t it?”.
Spoken by a man who knew.
I’ve learned when to dumb down, when to give someone else the idea.
April 25th, 2011 at 1:05 PM
M’self, I have somewhere between zero and very little creativity. I honor and indulge those with creativity, but somehow I have an incipient vague feeling that I shouldn’t turn my back on them. Weird people have been stoned to death as long as there have been people, you know.
I concur about the importance of good manners. Fortunately I was raised Southern, with emphasis on formal manners. This has stood me in good stead, considering my innate social cluelessness.