Creativity

Cross Post
What do you see?


Today I want to begin to address the topic of Creativity.
I have personally always been of the opinion that we all have Creativity within us, and have annoyed several friends over the years trying to convince them that they have Creativity inside them.
I remember a parable I learned as a child about the three men and their 'talents'. The word talents in this story meant a certain type of old-time money. The story as I remember it, was that a wealthy guy gave three of his sons or servants each a talent, when he left on a trip, instructing them to keep it safe or something like that. One of the three invested his talent and made several more talents, another also invested but not as boldly, and only gained one extra talent, and the last buried his talent so no one would steal it. Upon the wealthy guys return, he praised the two who had made more of their one talent, more praise to the one who had gained more extra talents, and berated the guy who had hidden his talent.
I never bought into this story as actually talking about money. That would be too scary! If you didn't invest your money correctly you could get caught in a get-rich-quick scam and lose it all! But using or burying our creative talents, that were given to us as a gift, was a lesson I eagerly learned as a child. Later in my life, when people told me that they weren't Creative, I sometimes thought they had just buried it when they were young, and didn't remember exactly where it was buried. But the more I explore Creativity and how different people's minds work, I think there are just different types of Creativity, and different types of thought processes to our different brains.
Out to lunch reciently with a couple of friends, we were talking about the design of the place we were eating. (It was very well designed at all levels.) I commented that I love design and archetecture. I love to have tours of homes or apartments. I would read the ‘Home’ section of the paper every Sunday as a kid, to see the new house design, and think seriously on how much I liked or disliked it. I designed homes and rooms as a kid, and still do, often designing a dream home or room in bed. (I have learned it helps to preoccupy my brain to more easily fall asleep.) Both my friends said they didn’t have the same design sight as I was talking about. One saying she doesn’t ‘see’ how colors would work together, as in painting a wall or a room, the other saying she doesn’t ‘see’ a house in an architectural drawing. She had trouble with parts of geometry, even though she’s one of the smartest people I know, because she couln’t draw the 3D shapes, she just couldn’t see them in her mind.
That’s just baffling to me. I can see lots of things that aren’t there with my Creative mind. I can see the project I’m working on, or the layout of the web page I want to make, I’m always thinking through the problem solving on some or another project. Perhaps it’s just part of how we are wired, how our individual brain works, how we ‘see’ things that are not necessarily there. Or maybe it can be taught.
Nature or Nurture?
What do you see? Where are your talents buried? Where is your Creativity?