Let's go back to the beginning.
Everyone thinks that creativity is a super power. And, as someone who is paid for those skills, of course I am going to let you believe it is indeed a super power that only very special, talented people possess. But….the reality is, whilst I might have been born exceptionally hairy, I wasn’t born different. And neither was anyone else in the creative industries.
Baby, you were born this way.
Think back, way back, to when you would create magical worlds from a cardboard box and a Fairy bottle. Your imagination had no bounds. You put 1 and 1 together and made infinity. There was no logic, there was no realism, it was let’s pretend. You would get lost in that world. You would invite your friends in and they would add to the world, bringing in Cindy the explorer who could swim underwater and walk through fire. (Even though her dress was made from the finest polyester and would go up in seconds - that was a technical detail you never even concerned yourself with).
You didn’t question reality, you just created the next chapter of the story or the game that made no sense at all to the adults around you, but made absolute sense to you and your friends. Real and imagined…
You questioned why (in my case repeatedly) to the humdrum of daily living and lived for the time you could go back and play.
So if you always had it? Where did you put it?
Self confessed non-creatives think that creatives have this magically different brain. Quite simply we are just the Peter Pans of the world. We refuse to believe that things are linear, we look at problems upside down and obsessively look at new ways to do things differently. We are just big kids still playing in the sandpit of imagination.
You might not be able to pinpoint the moment where the reality of life took a hold and dimmed your creative spark. It doesn't matter where you lost it, but it has never been more important to find it.
If you think AI is going to be the thing that helps you ‘be creative’, think again. Don’t get me wrong, AI is an amazing tool. It’s changing the world as we know it. But for me it's simply a tool that frees up time. I don’t have the will or inclination to type up notes from a meeting. I want a tool that does that. I don’t want to think about what to have for tea. I want a tool to do that. I want a tool that allows me to have more time to play with ideas.
So if AI is going to take over the humdrum and allow us time to play, isn’t it more important than ever to put even more onus on the power of the creative mind?
We can’t lose it if we never allow it to leave.
The talents of millions of children are being wasted according to a new report from N8 research partnership which is urging creativity to be embedded into an inclusive school curriculum.
Thankfully, the likes of Stenier and Montessori schools have always stressed the importance of play and how it can positively affect children's learning and creativity. And, more recently, the Daydream Believers - a group of passionate, award-winning educators and employers who came together to put creativity at the heart of education. They believe innovation and curiosity are key to unlocking the potential of the future workforce, and work tirelessly to get more resources into schools to help build creativity into the curriculum.
And gradually the message is getting through that creative thinking is the way forward nationally. The Future of Jobs report put creative thinking as the second highest priority for skills training.
So the next generation are sorted but what about us?
We need to make space in our everyday to play.
We need to create time to explore the hypnopompic state utilised by the likes of Edison and Dali.
We need to embrace the amazing strength of neurodivergent minds.
We need our creative agencies to be packed full to the brim of diversity.
We need to create a safe space for failure and a desire to bounce straight back into play from it.
We need to utilise tools that allow us to carve out more play time.
We simply need to remember what it's like to be a child. Throw caution to the wind. Ignore your logical brain saying it's not right and get your Fairy bottle back in action.
