(Artwork by Martina_Bulkova on Pixabay)
We are regularly surrounded by creative outputs by very talented people—amazing artwork, best-selling fiction, Oscar-winning movies, chart-topping music.
Does that mean those are the standards we should be aiming for?
After all, doesn’t the saying go: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” (Is it just me, or does that saying make no astronomical sense?)
I believe it’s essential to have goals and visions and dreams. But looking at the above examples brings us to the subject of “talent” and whether it’s important or not to creativity.
The Dangers of Talent
What exactly is talent? The dictionary says it is “natural aptitude or skill.” So in other words, something you’re naturally good at.
Some people have incredible talent and what they produce is amazing. The problem is, if that’s the field we want to play in, often seeing something by someone talented is more demoralising than anything.
Yes, it may give us a moon to shoot for, but would we be content with only stars if we miss it? Or could it stop us from aiming for anywhere, because we think we’re just never going to do anything that good?
And then there comes to the problem of viewing talent (or the lack thereof) as a barrier to entry.
How often have you felt like there’s no point starting something, learning something, trying something, because you just don’t have the talent for it?
Talent, talent, talent. We all want it, but even if we have some talent in a particular area, there are still other areas of creativity where we don’t possess talent. We may be really good at needlework but actually love watercolour. We may be a fantastic doodler but wish we were a musician. Or we may not know what we’ve got a talent for and wish we could do all the things.
So, here are my questions for you: should only ‘talented’ people be creative? What about the rest of us? What do our Creativities do for our lifetime?
My Creativity (as you can guess) has an opinion.
Talent in Perspective
First of all, as an aside, the dictionary also says that a talent is a “former weight and unit of currency, used especially by the ancient Romans and Greeks.” So if your talent is heavier than you think it should be and isn’t buying what it used to, you may have etymological confusion.
But that’s a subject for another day.
With regard to today’s subject, I’ve got a question for you: Why do children stop drawing?
Think about it, have you ever seen a small child who didn’t love drawing? Whether it’s on paper, or tablets, or walls, or car upholstery they’re usually there, pen, marker, pencil, crayon, dirt, small pet in hand and smudging the canvas with any and every idea they have.
When did you stop doing that?
When did your love of something change into ‘I’m not good enough at this, I need to stop’?
Why stop?
Seriously, why stop?!
And what happened to the parents who used to hang everything you did on their fridge and now suddenly need all that space for shopping lists, emergency numbers, inspirational quotes, and a grandparent’s twenty-year-old postcard from Montenegro?
Humans seem to reach a stage where doing something just for the fun of it, just because it’s interesting or inspiring or downright crazy, is no longer appropriate.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret: your Creativity never grows out of it!
Your Creativity still loves watercolour and crayons and large sheets of paper that you can sweep your paintbrush across side-to-side with every colour imaginable—especially gold. We should all have gold!
So why create? Because you’re good at it?
What a ridiculous reason.
Do small children draw because they’re good at it?
No! They draw because they love it. Because as soon as they develop fine motor skills they want to use those to create. Creativity is hard wired. Every human has a little Creativity inside (and I say ‘little’ because there are some of us who are height-challenged, not because there’s only a little bit of Creativity).
Does that Creativity need talent before they can be allowed out to play?
That’s like saying ‘does each human have to meet an intelligence quota before they’re allowed to breathe?’
Create because you breathe. Create because you’re a human and you’re totally allowed to try whatever you want to try whether you’re any good at it or not.
The goal is not to create something amazing. The goal is to ENJOY the process. The goal is to BE creative because everyone has a right to be that. Whether you have a heavy and outdated Roman currency in that field of endeavour or not!
Why Create?
I recently came across this wonderful quote from Dr. Christina Davies:
“You don’t have to be good at art for art to be good for you.”
I feel that sums up the subject very well.
Creativity is good for you. It’s healthy and healing and energising. So if you’re stopping yourself doing something because you have no talent for it, what enjoyment are you denying yourself?
Sometimes we might feel that we only enjoy things when we are good at them. But think back to childhood you when you were creating random paintings of square houses with wonky triangular roofs and windows shoved up into each top corner of the building. Did you enjoy it? Did you love it?
Do you still paint? If not, what about a Paint and Sip class somewhere nearby? Or what about a pottery class, or a beading class, or a scrapbooking class? What if you just need a bit of direction and some people around you who are enjoying themselves creating to remind you what that feels like.
You don’t have to be good at [insert your creative love here] for it to be good for you. You just need to recognise that creativity needs to be part of your life because…well, because you deserve it.
So what is your creative love? Tell me about it below.