CREATIVITY

Our Government spend millions and millions of money on the creative industries to make it work. But throwing resources in without answering the most fundamental question, "What is CREATIVITY?", does bothers me as we are simply beating around the bush.

To me, I find it hard to capture the little twirls of creativity that is simply floating in the air. It is not obvious and it is hard to catch.

If there is a location to look for it, I think it is at the heartlands and bustling streets with people gathering from all walks of life, interacting and coming to play. A walk into life like this is far more effective at catching creativity rather than sitting at the Starbucks, cracking my head, looking for inspiration over a cup of expensive coffee. I like the atmosphere best when there is a festival that is ongoing. The buzzing, vibrant energy springing to and fro in the air, just rubs it off me.
It is just pure energising and absolutely refreshing. It seems like a lot of creative elements can be unlock from the shackles and release into the air. Sounds a lot like endorphines being released into the body when one takes in chocolate. Makes a person gooey and relax, and, AH-HA, creative elements just come knocking the door of your brains.
Don't reject or resist.
It might just change your life forever.
A tipping point.
Just capture it, focus and enlarge.
Creativity comes when your consciousness is dormant and unconsciousness is active.

Warner Bros movie - "A Cinderella's Story"

Though it is a romantic, almost bedtime story kind of movie, there are several themes that are notable.

Theme no. 1 - FEAR
This is the no. 1 enemy of a lot of people. Everyone will have their fair share of innate fear. It is how people choose to view the fear. Is it a challenge for them or does it signify a chance to grow in personal maturity by looking at this fear from a different lens or perspective.

The Quote I remember the best was

"Never let the fear of striking out, keep you from playing the game. "

This is almost the same as 

"Never let the fear of failure, keep you from achieving your goal." 

In the movie,the female lead played by Hilary Duff actually persevering to go on with her life and future to Princeton amidst her obstacles with money and stepmother with her positive attitude of never say die.  We all have fear of losing what we have amassed or in our possession. To let go and pursue something which is not even visible is potentially harrowing experience. A high-risk investment with a likely good profits.


Theme no. 2 - identity and self-expression


A common stage that young adults and teenagers go through. How to show people who you really are without hurting people or showing them disrespect unintentionally? To tell people off that you are actually who you are, is very painful for both the sender and the receiver of the message even though it is done in a nice manner.


The quote in the movie in which Sam told Austin to stop hiding himself and reveal his true nature. People should adjust themselves with the changes. There is no way one can hide the true nature all the time. At some point in time, the person cannot hold the pent up frustrations anymore and explode. It may do more harm than good in the relationships than revealing the true nature of the person right from the start.

"I never pretended to be somebody else. It's been me all along. And it was me who was hurt in front of everybody. Look, I didn't come here to yell at you, okay? I came to tell you that I know what it feels like to be afraid to show who you are. I was, but I'm not anymore. And the thing is, I really don't care what people think about me... because I believe in myself. And I know that things are gonna be okay. But even though I have no family, and no job, and no money for college... it's you that I feel sorry for. "

Theme no.3 - Analogies for Dreams

"Fairytales aint just about find princes. They are about fulfilling your dreams and about standing up for what you believed in."

Fairytales, though, rosy and ends well, lies on 1 presupposition, 

"People are equipped with all the resources they need to make the changes they want or achieve their desired outcomes" . 

People are all poised to succeed, just that they need to find an area to focus their talents on. 


Movie watching is not just solely for entertainment but movies mirrors life and provide a different lens to look at things. Try doing that the next time you are in cinema.

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

This quote sort of align itself to a query that I had in my mind quite recently. It is like "whatever you focus, expands." Boom, suddenly there is a lot of information relevant to your search around you, that you saw it like the first time.

The recent theme was goal searching. In my friend's blogpost, he is a life coach by the way, he talks about how people can achieve their long-term lifelong goals by answering different questions at different point in time.

AS usual, great learning comes after a state of confusion. Though he explained to me very clearly, I was skeptical over how he categorise things.

He says that there are different questions asked at different stages of life. It is to one's utmost benefits to ask questions the questions that we would face at the later stage asap so that the questions he faced in the early stages of his life would be solved by answering the ultimate big question which is ecological to everything. This in NLP terms is called chunking up and the concept of things cannot be solved on the same level.

Yeah, that I agreed with him. It is better to have that awareness on those questions. My doubt comes, at a stage of the young adult, does he know how to answer that question?

Right now, the young adult is probably grappling with the fundamental notion of getting recognition and fame which seems more tangible and larger-than-life. All these while,it has been people taking care of him or her. There is no value attached as to how he can contribute using his power. He can only help people when he knows his strength of contribution.

My question is how can he quicken his step so that he can contribute to people later?

My answer to my own question lies in the quote. Dream 1st and quickly act on it. Unravel what you can and cannot do. Then you sum it up and see how your strengths can help you to be more beneficial to others and harness your weaknesses towards it.
Know Thyself is still the key.
Fame and recognition are the by-products and rough indicator of one's testing of strengths but it must not be the ultimate goal. You must acknowledge that you have achieve your intentions - Find your strengths.

STAGES IN LIFE

Everything in this universe has a lifecycle.
I used to remember the science class I had when I was in primary school.
A frog has 4 main stages in its lifecycle.
A piece of technology has 5-6 stages in its lifecycle.
I did wonder as a little child,
the species known as humans, what are the stages in our lifecycle?
The Chinese sum it up the best in 4 main stages in the succinct for words: birth, aged, sick and death.
Of course they also say things like there are many celebratory events in a person's life. First is when they are born. So one month after babies are born, they are labelled as 1 years old.
Then comes reaching adulthood. They hold a lavish party and announce to everyone that you have reached this age so you are and adult now.
After that is when you become a scholar after passing the national exams. Your name is well-known to everyone as you have just received the key or the license to great promising and prosperous future.
After that is to get married.
After that is when you managed to live till 70 years old. Quite a feat considering the level of mortality rate and health consciousness.
Last thing is when you really live until 100 years old with at least 4 generations of family living with you. When the 100 years old died, the children wore red to signify prosperity and good luck.

I think many times we ask ourselves, do we have to go through the same stages as everyone else? Is there a rationale for going through the assembly-line like life? What if we skip a step, detour a little?
Do people view us as freaks, a defect item or an extraordinary person who takes risks?
Most of the time the former.
Caving in due to social pressure is the most common.
After reviewing so much about people's lives,seems like this is the norm.
The question to ask is do I have to spend my life like that?
Is it worth the fight to be something different?
Never dreamt of?
Dream that people tell u that you are nuts.
unrealistic fool as they call you.
Then they laugh at you when you are no longer able to look after yourself financially. They laugh at you for something that they have and you dun have. They ignore the laughter we had when we do the same trick to them.
Power of the majority.
Robot.
The pods in the Matrix.
Remembering this, brings creeps to my skin.
So real, metaphorically speaking.
The most pertinent question is DO WE CHANGE?
The risks involved?
Pros outweighed the cons?
realistic goal?