Everyone is Creative

By Kelle Walsh, Imagine Magazine (Fall, 2004).

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scientists, Nobel prize winners, stage and film actors, humanitarians, economists and philosophers, Csikszentmihalyi concludes that true creativity, in any realm, requires the same skill set: dedication, hard work, actively seeking new challenges, boldness, and the willingness to follow your creative endeavor to the very end, wherever that may be. And these are skills we all can master.

"Each person has, potentially, all the psychic energy he or she needs to live a creative life," Csikszentmihalyi says.

How creativity develops

Genetics certainly plays a role in the development of the creative mind — giving one person a predisposition to, say, engineering, another the acumen to blend colors — but there are other things that have helped them along their path. Environment, nurture, exposure to a particular skill at an early age, and a healthy dash of luck and timing — all play important parts in how easily someone accesses and utilizes their creativity, experts say.

If, for example, you were fortunate enough to have parents who fostered your creativity with lessons in art, music and dance, if they encouraged you to cultivate your imagination, pursue your interests and express your thoughts, as an adult you probably feel more comfortable than most people expressing yourself in creative ways.

On the other hand, for many creative people, not fitting in was the difficult pathway that led them to explore the inner world where creativity resides.

Scientists have identified specific creativity traits. Creative people take risks. They break rules. They create without fear of failure. They are comfortable with solitude. They are curious about the world. They don't view their creations as work.

"I'm one of those people who never feels the need to 'get away' from my work, because it doesn't feel like work to me. It's simply a part of who I am," says Chris Dunmire, an Illinois-based graphic designer and the host of the Creativity Portal Web site (www.creativity-portal.com). A full-time job doing print and Web site design, marketing and writing doesn't deter Dunmire from putting in at least 20 hours a week on her hobby: providing a cyber salon to connect with others who are exploring their creativity.

In 1999 Dunmire went back to school to study graphic design in an attempt to recapture the unselfconscious creative freedom she felt as a child. "It wasn't

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About the Author
Kelle Walsh is a journalist based in Santa Cruz, California. Creativity Portal was granted permission by the publisher of Imagine Magazine to reprint this article.