If you had a time machine, would you travel into the future to see what’s in store for you 10, 20 or 30 years from now? Or would you rather travel back in time, perhaps right after college graduation, to fix a mistake you made or take another path in life?

Never content to accept conventional wisdom, creatives love to learn things the hard way. But is it absolutely necessary?

Time and time again we hear the same advice about the importance of expressing our emotions, and it’s true – we must. It’s far from ideal to keep emotions bottled up inside, however it’s not always easy for everyone and perhaps some feelings are easier to express than others.

We human beings are like most other organisms on earth.  Our lives are brief in cosmic terms; we pass through a common cycle of mortality from conception to birth to death; we have many of the same physical needs as other species and we depend on nutrients that the earth supplies.

Over the past few centuries of industrialism, more and more people have moved off the land into cities and seem to believe that we can live apart from the rest of nature. The growing climate crisis is a reminder that we cannot.

But in one respect at least, human beings are radically different from the rest of life on earth.  We have imaginations.  As a result we have unlimited powers of creativity.

Creativity is sometimes associated with free expressions, which is partly why some people worry about creativity in education.  Critics think of children running wild and knocking down the furniture rather than getting on with serious work.  Being creative does usually involve playing with ideas and having fun; enjoyment and imagination.

But creativity is also about working in a highly focused way on ideas and projects, crafting them into their best forms and making critical judgments along the way about which work best and why.  In every discipline, creativity also draws on skill, knowledge and control.

When people lack the ability to articulate their true feelings and passions, it leads to potential relationship problems and poor career choices.

What would the world be like if only one flower existed—let’s say, a rose?

No daffodils, lilies, daisies, violets, dandelions or marigolds. Just roses. Only roses. All flower shops would be called “Rose Shops”. If we go one step further, we could say that the only color of rose would be red. No white, yellow or any of the other pretty colors. Imagine this and you see how much we appreciate variety.

Remember the saying, variety is the spice of life?

Humanity is as beautiful as a flower garden! Unlimited variety, sizes, shapes, colors and personalities enhance that garden. It is to be appreciated, nurtured and observed.

Just think how dull life would be without people using their creativity to show it off to the world and have somebody say “Wow that’s extremely amazing.” Or, “I like the color palletes he used for the painting.”

We would never hear those words if people lacked creativity and expressions. Having creativity inside of you is the most important thing that your life needs, *Other than your heart.*

Having expression ability and being able to express yourself in various ways is a gift that was given to us. Without creativity…there would be no meaning to life…

Thanks to our social conditioning it’s not encouraged to express and speak about our fears, pain or weaknesses so often – but it’s a healthy part of being human and vital on the road to your personal evolution

So much of society seems to want to rob you of YOU by telling you what you can’t do and how you can’t succeed. Through words, actions and gestures, they imply that you are not valuable and that you can’t achieve greatness. But, you are NOT a zero, in fact you can be the champion of your life!

You can’t be cloned!

If we were even to try to clone the real you, that would mean that every interaction and relationship you have experienced would have to be identical and each response would have to be repeated exactly.

In order to duplicate you, we must totally replicate the billions of interactions you have had throughout your life, which is absolutely impossible!

But, just for fun, let’s suppose we could clone you. Your clone would have to respond to every single circumstance in the same way you did. But, Life is crowded with choices.

Pause a moment and remember a few of those tough choices you faced. Maybe sometimes you chose right and sometimes wrong. What would your clone choose?

Your entrance into this world and your journey through it make a statement of who you are and what you believe. Your choices will determine your destiny. You are YOU! There will never be another one like you.

We can learn from others and enhance our own lives if we look at people with more open and accepting eyes.

The experience of living will test your beliefs, gradually refining and purifying their validity. Unfortunately, many men and women go through life unwilling to try new things, unwilling to stretch themselves into new areas, never challenging their beliefs, never realizing that they are so much more than they ever thought they would be—never realizing their potential.

We humans have not yet achieved our full creative potential primarily because every child’s creativity is not properly nutured.  Thousands of years of history suggest that the schoolhouse as we know it is an absurd way to rear our young: it’s contrary to everything we know about what it is to be a human being.

Your body is the vehicle for the expression of your soul as well as the window to your soul.

Our soul is often referred to as the seat of our desires, emotions and passions. Your soul (total self) expresses its uniqueness through your body (physical self) in speech and actions.

The essence of who you are cannot be seen unless it is expressed through your words and actions. If, deep inside, you want to be an artist, would you not express that desire through painting or sculpture?

You take action through your body to express and fulfill the desires of your soul. If you happened to see an artists’ exhibit, you value it as their impressions come through your senses to your soul.

Your body supplies your soul with information. Your artistic soul values the impressions given by your body and enjoys a memorable experience.

It would take several lifetimes to collect the information and validate it to comprehensively explain your total self. To print it would require more pages than any library in the world could contain. Can we possibly identify and explain all of the varying interactions of the com- ponents of your personality? We’re talking billions of possibilities.

Humans have expressed themselves ever since they were first created. Whether it’s writing a story, or building a castle in Minecraft, everybody expresses themselves in unique and creative ways. Expressing yourself has taken a major role in everyone’s life. If we never expressed our self the world would be dull and pointless.

Current approaches to education and training are hobbled by assumptions about intelligence and creativity that have squandered the talents and stifled the creative confidence of untold numbers of people.  This waste stems partly from an obsession with certain types of academic ability and from a preoccupation with standardized testing.  The waste of talent is not deliberate but it is systemic.

It is systemic because public education is a system, and it is based on deep-seated assumptions that are no longer true.

“Universal truths” become dangerous when we hold them out as the standard and measure others against them. It is a travesty to judge someone against a standard that is simply not true. I am continually amazed at the many false statements made in seminars and in books by educated people. Many are based only on personal observation and opinion.

The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges.   Yet many people wonder if they have any creative abilities at all.

But, creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence.

If you’ve ever expressed yourself you know that once you get an idea in your head you want to make that a reality. Expressing yourself all depends on how you do it and the techniques that you use when doing it.

Idea’s and creativity trigger the expressiveness of people and give them new ways to express themselves whenever doing or creating something.

There must be, in a functional democracy, an atmosphere that promotes the challenge of ideas. If such an atmosphere is oppressed, than democratic dialogue cannot evolve. Perspectives are necessary, and to offer only one without anything to the contrary reeks of an authoritative influence that attempts to beguile us from understanding fundamental truths.

The roots of a creative society are in basic education.  The sheer volume of facts to be digested by the students of today leaves little time for a deeper interrogation of their moral worth.  The result has been a generation of technicians rather than visionaries, each one taking a career rather than an idea seriously.

The answer must be to reform our educational methods so that students are encouraged to ask about “know-why” as  well as “know-how”.

Although most people might look for signs of creativity in the appearance of the bulletin boards, student made projects, centers and displays in the classroom, I feel the truly creative classroom goes way beyond what can be seen with the eyes.  It is a place where bodies and minds actively pursue new knowledge.

Conventional thinking is based on widely accepted assumptions which may, or may not, be true. Either way, these assumptions are designed to channel you into the vast sea of normality. In fact, conventional thinking is custom tailored to make you normal.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with normal if that’s what you want. But before you rally to the defense of normal, let’s stop and consider what normal really means these days.

The socially acceptable concept of normal is built entirely on a foundation of conventional thinking. To truly think and live outside the box, we need to recognize who built the box in the first place. We need to acknowledge that doing things, and thinking about things, the same way everybody else does will not lead to happiness or help us achieve our dreams.

The past few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBA’s who could crunch numbers.

But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

Training in Creativity is important, in general. But it is absolutely essential in this Age of Intangibles and Intellectual Capital.

Once the arts are restored to a more central role in education institutions there could be a tremendous unleashing of creative energy in other disciplines too.

So, let’s begin our journey. Let’s begin with understanding ourselves. Let’s answer some of those unanswered questions we have lived with all our lives.

Lao Tse said, “He who understands others is learned, he who understands himself is wise.” Let’s go for wise before learned.

Remember, you are far more than you think you are!

When all is said and done, and we’re sitting back in that rocking chair, the greatest accomplishments we can reflect on is how we touched other lives throughout the years, the relationships we have built and the friendships we have shared.

Never sacrifice what you love.

Live and learn. We All Do.

Thanks for reading. Please share 🙂

Please don’t forget to leave a comment.