“Oh, no! You’ve got Creative-itis?”

Each time you catch a cold, it’s a new kind of cold. The symptoms and the suffering may seem to be the same, but it’s a totally new cold. You see, there are more than 20,000 virus strains that are known to cause the common cold. And each time you catch a cold, your body learns to defend itself, to immunize itself, against that particular cold-causing virus. So only a new one can infect you!

The Creativity Virus is very similar. Here you are, going about life in a simple, sober and mechanical fashion, being absolutely normal, when suddenly you feel a strange tickle in your chest. Your heart pumps a little faster, your mouth goes dry and your mind goes into overdrive. You feel an idea coming on! It’s a new one!

You think it’ll go away if you ignore it. But it doesn’t. The feelings continue to nag you. And they’re growing by the minute, day by day. Soon, you become dissatisfied with what you’re doing in life! You feel you’re under-performing. You feel you’re destined for a much higher calling! You start mumbling in your sleep, “I owe it to myself to do something different, something fulfilling, something that can make a difference to my life and to the lives of others!”

Your near and dear ones will do everything in their power to get the best treatment possible for this new and dangerous affliction. And if you’re the obedient kind, you’ll respond. You’ll not succumb to the lure of Creativity!

But let us for a moment assume that you do not respond to the treatment. Let us get a second opinion, so you can make an informed choice; a more detailed study of your symptoms from specialists, before you take the ultimate step of declaring your creativity to the world, growing a ponytail, and start wearing an earring.

What is creativity?
People find it difficult to define creativity, just as it’s difficult to legally define pornography: most people know creativity when they see it. Some people believe that creativity means conceiving something entirely new. Others think that adapting, improving, advancing or finding a new application for an existing process or product qualifies as creative behavior. Or creativity could merely be original ways to reach goals when there seems to be no simple and convenient way to do so.
In any case, after much debate, researchers have concluded that, creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (original, unexpected, and divergent) and appropriate (useful, relevant, meets task definitions and constraints).

So are you the ‘Creative Type’?

The traits and characteristics described here may seem a little biased towards the creative writer. I have deliberately done so, because personally I feel that writing is one of the primary abilities that creative people display – anyone who can think and speak should be able to write and express themselves in an interesting and involving manner. Creative people are good at writing, although not necessarily good at grammar.

Based on an article written by J P Guildford several years ago, here, briefly, are the most important traits and common characteristics displayed by creative people:

• Fluency of thinking. The creative person is able to think freely and effortlessly. This quality comprises:
– word fluency – can easily state words containing a given letter or combination of letters;
– associational fluency – can easily state synonyms for a given word;
– expressional fluency – can easily write well-formed sentences containing a specified content;
– ideational fluency – can easily produce ideas to fulfill certain requirements (for example, to name objects that are hard, white and edible) or to write an appropriate title for a given story.
• Flexibility of thinking. The creative person can easily abandon old ways of thinking and adopt new ones. For example:
– Spontaneous flexibility – can produce a great variety of ideas such as the popular ’10 new uses for a common object’. For example, in suggesting uses for a brick, the person can jump among categories, from building material to door stop to missile to source of red powder.
– Adaptive flexibility – can generalize requirements of a problem to find a solution. For example, in a problem of forming squares using a minimum number of lines, can abandon the usual idea that all squares have to be the same size.
• Originality. The creative person comes up with ideas that are statistically unusual. An example is remote associations: the person forms associations between elements that are remote from each other in time or space or remote from each other logically.
• Ability to see, or sensitivity to problems. The creative person can state difficulties or deficiencies in common products or in social institutions and judge whether the desired goals in a described situation have been achieved. This is associated with ‘putting your finger on the problem’, ‘posing the right question’ and ‘getting straight to the crux of the matter’.
• Responses are judged to be clever. This is a subjective evaluation, but it is similar to people generally agreeing that someone is intelligent – not intellectually, but intelligent as in ‘sharp’.
• Redefinition – gives up old interpretations of familiar objects and uses them in new ways. For example, ‘Which of the following objects could best be used to make a needle: pencil, radish, shoe, fish, lotus?’ (fish – use the bone).
• Elaboration – can fill in details given a general scheme. For example, given a general task, will fill in the detailed steps. Given two simple lines, will draw a more complex object.
• Tolerance of ambiguity – willingness to accept some uncertainty in conclusions, not using rigid categories. Some creative people seem to be actually attracted to risk and uncertainty.
• Interest in convergent thinking – thinking towards one right answer, as in solving a mathematical problem stated in a textbook. Rather than ‘left-brain’ thinking, which is sometimes linked to a blinkered approach, this is the ability to focus on detail when necessary. Swami Vivekananda was able to concentrate on small details then immediately switch to global affairs. Quality thinking does not involve ‘either-or’ but ‘both’.
• Interest in divergent thinking – open-ended thinking where no single answer is the right answer. This feature is universally associated with creative thinking and forms a large part of the psychometric instruments (tests).
• Willing to be different and to defy convention. This suggests a leader rather than a follower, but more in the sense of a leader in ideas rather than of people. They have a general dislike of ‘authority’ – “Why must this be so?”
• High self-discipline. Although the unconscious and the subconscious play an important part in the creative process, the creative person puts his conscious mind into the process very deliberately.
• High standards of excellence. The creative person is self-driven. He sets higher standards of excellence as bigger challenges are pursued. The pursuit of excellence per se seems to be part of the person’s motivation.
• Willingness to take risks. This is not about gambling. Rather, it’s the willingness to take risks where the outcomes can’t be predicted. They are willing to choose unorthodox or unproven solutions and processes, instead of relying on strategies that have worked in the past. People willing to take more risks also show higher flexibility and originality in their thinking.

Creatives tend to be attracted to, rather than be afraid of, complex problems.
They like things of beauty and art. Their desire to be creative (sometimes just for the sake of being creative) comes from within – it’s the intellectual novelty that motivates them.
They are opportunists constantly looking for situations where they can transform something.
They show great intellectual curiosity. They are open to experiences and are gluttons for a wide variety of information. They don’t bother to restrict their own impulses or the impulses of others – everything is welcome!
Creative people show concentrated effort, persistence, high levels of energy in their work. Their persistence and perseverance is related to high levels of self-confidence. A great part of their confidence comes from pride in their unique and distinctive behavior. They are often assertive – creative individuals believe in what they think and do. Nothing wrong with that! Innovators are more self-perceptive, and independence and good self-image predict good problem finding capabilities (finding a good problem is often more important and more difficult than solving the problem!).
And best of all, rather than thinking they are better than everyone else, creative individuals often do not pay much attention to anyone else.

Ha! No wonder your near and dear ones are so desperate to cure your ‘Creative-itis’!