If ever we need survival skills, we need them now. The one survival skill you may not have considered is creativity. Yes. The survival skill you need is creativity.
When we are children playing with toys, our imaginations soar. We see rocket ships in sticks and oceans in mud puddles. How is it that as we get older, we stop seeing those things?
Our society doesn’t value creativity like it once was.
How Creativity Lost Points
Modern society shoulders much of the blame. The realities of working for a living often mean we need to learn linearly. To enable our children to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, we send them to schools that teach devalue creativity and require linear thinking. For reasons. And yes, there are some classes that encourage and allow creativity. But most of them…not so much.
And then there is technology. Technology permeates our culture and our workplaces. Therefore, one must learn to use technology. And some of those gadgets and devices are both necessary and addictive. We work and play on them.
There are studies that say younger people (20s) don’t memorize things . They prefer to use gadgets and technology to do that. And their brain reverts the process of memorization to a more primitive form.
Younger people also prefer to read on a device. But text read by scrolling has a much lower retention or memorization rate.
Creativity is a Survival Skill
If you are in a survival situation and you lack food, clothing, or shelter. Your ability to solve your problem creatively becomes a survival skill.
“Many people tend to associate creativity with freedom and moving laterally across a field of possibilities; in fact, creativity is frequently a response to limits and it usually demands a vertical, deeper incursion into the material.”
Enrique Martínez Celaya, contemporary artist, usejournal.com
Creativity requires a cognitive flexibility and an openness to new ideas. And that, according to Scientific American, helps you live longer.
Creativity reduces stress. Creative people “tend not to get as easily flustered when faced with an emotional or physical hurdle.” (It certainly helps me!)
Creativity is also a way to exercise the brain. And yes, exercising your brain is as important as exercising your body.
Build Your Creative Skills
If you think of yourself as not creative, think again. You are creative. And you don’t have to be an artist to be creative. You’ve unlearned how to be creative.
Want to exercise your creativity? I’m borrowing and adapting an exercise I learned from artist, Elizabeth Leggett.
Get something to write on. Go to your kitchen. Get one or two spices out of your cabinet.Take a big sniff of one of those spices.
Does that aroma remind you of anything? A place, a holiday, a food, or perhaps an event or day from your past.
Now take three minutes and jot down a few notes about what you thought of or felt immediately after smelling that spice.
That’s all. There’s no failure. Not even if the spice didn’t remind you of anything. The exercise is simply waking up your creativity.
More to Come
Stay tuned to this website every Monday. We’ll explore what creativity is, how to wake it up, and how to grow your skills. It’s important to exercise your brain. Remember, the survival skill you need is creativity.