Everyone is Creative

I saw one of my friends earlier, a good friend, who I don't see often enough. It turns out that he just started going to the same school that I'm going to. We talked about what classes we were taking. One of his classes is a Art History class, I'm taking all graphic design classes. I was talking about how I just got a new place to carry some of my art. He then said "the art history class is the only art class I'll ever take, that's as creative as I get." that lead me to thinking about the ideas behind this website, and structuring our lives around our creativity, are some people not cut out for this? Well, I think that everyone is creative, people just need to realize it.

I saw an interview once with Ira Glass from This American Life and he talked about how we all have good taste. He was talking about how we can identify music we think is good, or art, video, design, many different things we think are good we can identify, but it can get frustrating when we can't reproduce it. He also talked about how long it takes to do things that you think are as good as the stuff you think is good. Now he was a successful radio personality at a very young age, but he felt like he was bad at it for the first eight years he was doing it. I think that what he was talking about is why people like my friend don't think they are creative. Of course we aren't going to be as good as our favorite artists when we start, probably not even for years.

The two most important, relevant to what I'm talking about, things in that story are 1 the fact that good taste is important and it will let you know where your headed, and 2 he was successful before he thought he was good. 

Often times when I start to do something new, new art, making music, websites, or anything else I've done, I realize that it is no where near what I want it to be, but I still receive positive feedback from other people. Most of the time the inspiration in doing something for me, or for most people, comes from seeing someone else do something like it and really liking it. I know that when I do something new that I will not be half as good as I want it to be, but I also think usually that I can find some people that will like it. I also know that if I continue to do it I will get better at it. Not only are we our own harshest critics, we are essentially the least important when it comes to creating value. Other people decided the value of the things we create, not us.

I know that I can be a better writer, I know I can be a better artist, graphic designer, typographer, web designer, podcaster, social networker, I can be better at all of these things. I have however been able to reach a fairly decent sized audience with my writing, and inspired a lot of them. At my first art show ever I sold ten pieces. I've designed 4 logos, three business cards, and a couple posters, in just a couple months. I have been referred to as the next typographic genius, which I'm not buying just yet. I have two websites, the second of which is much better than the first. I have a fifty thousand person per month audience on my podcast. And finally I've been able to connect with thousands of people through social networking sites. I've had some success with all of these things, and I would rate my ability in them at just the seedling stage, I have lots of room to grow.

Each one of the things that I do now, that I attempt to produce value with in my daily life are things that I like. They are also things I pay attention to. There is some design I like, and some design I don't. There are some podcasts I like, some I don't. With each thing I do I've consumed enough of it to be somewhat of a critic. Everyone has things they like, even my uncreative friend. Now all of us could try to do something in the field we like, it might not be even close to as good as we want it to be, but it will probably be good to less frequent consumers than us of the thing we like. We will also get better at that thing with time, and as we continue to get better, it will continue to appeal to more and more people.

If you regularly follow television shows you could start a blog about them, or a podcast about them. With the accessibility of the Internet and technology in this day and age anyone can do these two things. Once you have these things of value you can start to promote them. One out of every two people in America has a facebook account, and one out of every twelve in the world. Twitter is also blowing up. You get a twitter and Facebook account to then promote your blog and your website. Usually people know people that they talk to about their interests. This is where you start to build your audience. The first people that read my blogs are people that like talking to me. Then they tell people about my website, and if those people like it they tell people. This is obviously a process, you won't be successful over night. Once you have established these things of value it's then your job to continue to increase their value. In the example of a TV blog this involves more television shows, and more critiquing. As you continue you to develop your taste in shows you continue to realize why you like them more and more. Your blog and podcast will get better. Maybe with enough time passed you write a youtube show. Maybe the writing of your show inspires you to learn animation software and produce it yourself. Maybe you now have a huge audience and they love the show, then the show becomes a viral hit. That opens up a lot of opportunities. Obviously this is hypothetical, but things like this happen all of the time on the Internet.

What I'm essentially talking about here is the roots of my process. You take something that you like, something you're interested in, and then learn how to create value out of that interest. Another part of that hypothetical scenario is running with it. Part of the designing life process is fully immersing yourself into that interest. Every interest has thousands of ways that it can be approached, and thanks to technology and the availability of information these days anyone can easily research the thousands of ways that their interests are being taken to a level of value.

There is not one thing I'm doing today that I would be doing had I not followed a process to get here, and had the initiative and commitment to do it. All of my talents today, and the things of value I have created came from initiative and interest. One thing that it helps to realize is that when you start in with initiative and interest you can never guess where you will end up.

It's been a while since I've posted here on Evolver. I've been super busy with school full time, work full time, and fostering my creativity with numerous different projects. I miss you guys. If you would like to read more of the things I've written lately please visit: www.designingchris.com, and let me know what you think of the idea of it.

Please comment below and share your stories of fostered creativity.

Get creative,

Chris