Rethinking creativity

When King Solomon lamented the words “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 NIV)”, he pretty much figured it out that well… there is nothing new under the sun.

And the point I’m driving at?

Many people, especially those in the so called “creative industry” are so adamant on originality that a whole lot of time is spent in circles and moments pondering on the next big idea, or the “Big Kahuna”. And before you know it, days and months would passed with a correspondingly long bill to clients for hours spent.

Gosh, if only they weren’t so hung up on how “things are supposed to be”, how creative thinking “must take time” (in this case, extended time) that the whole so called “thinking out of the box” process is re-confined to industry standards of confinement. That is, they have become the very characteristics they abhor and preach against. Ironic, isn’t it?

See, while it is all well and good to spend time in creative thought, an equally amount of consideration should also be given to “practice, practice & more practice”. See, Solomon’s words are very true in many sense. We all “create originality” from someone else’s work done before. Tweaking and modifying things does not make it original, for there is nothing original under the sun.

Hey, let’s face it. There is no shame in doing that as every so called “new creation” has its roots in something that was there earlier. However, there is shame to claim originality as though nothing else existed before. Look, unless we’re God, we have no ability to have that “First Original Creation” done.

And as for “practice, practice and more practice”, writers, especially scrip writers are more attuned to this “fact-of-life” that their whole work revolves about. Best written works are not written… they are rewritten, rewritten and rewritten countless times before getting published or used.

Having said that, perhaps we should seriously rethink accepted norms surrounding the field of creativity and well, just put out hands to the plough and work it through “practice, practice and more practice”.