Do you think of yourself as creative?
If, like most people you don’t, is it because you don’t consider yourself a good drawer or able to write a poem?
Who is the person that you call an artist? A man who is momentarily creative? To me he is not an artist. The man who merely, at rare moments, has this creative impulse and expresses that creativeness through perfection of technique, surely you would not call him an artist.
To me, the true artist is one who lives completely, harmoniously, who does not divide his art from living, whose very life is that expression, whether it be a picture, music, or his behaviour; who has not divorced his expression on a canvas or in music or in stone from his daily conduct, daily living. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
For years I felt this creative void within myself.
With an inability to express myself artistically, I’d often look on enviously at people who could vomit their deepest feelings onto a canvas. And because I couldn’t, I believed I was not creative. This reflected in my life. Uninspired. Stuck in a job that wasn’t suited for me. Stuck in dysfunctional relationships. A victim of the world.
And I know I’m not alone.
We all have this yearning to express our most truest selves in a meaningful way.
It’s one of the reasons why we admire artists so much. But we’re told that we aren’t creative. We can’t draw, or write, or sing. We don’t meet the societal criteria. So why bother? We go to work for someone else’s dream, in clothes that are mass produced and live in houses that follow the same design. How could we ever think that we are creative?
We have been made to believe a lie to live quiet lives of submission. Playing small, we hand over our agency to be, because we don’t believe we have choice.
Creativity is the ability to transform the formless into form.
To turn a feeling of gratitude into an act of love. Or a passion into a business. Even a walk down a busy city street is an act of creation when we choose how to show up, how to be in that moment. Every facet of our lives is an expression of who we are.
When we see this as the truth, that our world is a reflection of us (yes, even the dysfunction), when we remember that we are the creators of it (yes, even the dysfunction), we put love and intentionality into all we do. Everything becomes a choice. Every meeting with another being, every detail of our work, every mundane task is a blank canvas.
The belief in our creative agency is directly proportional to the amount of fucks given.
And so our relationships, our work and our lives become more authentic. More aligned with who WE are and what we want for ourselves. We become less concerned with following the norms and more inspired to turn our lives into a work of art.
By reclaiming our creativity, we reclaim our divinity- the creative control over our lives.
And you are fucking divine!