In 1872, Claude Monet painted the famous painting “Impression”. Sunrise. This is when he and his fellow artists organized their first exhibition, thus opposing the ruling, classicist movement. They were laughed at and teased by the criticism as well as the audience. However, they stood by their choices. They decided to paint pictures that express the elusiveness of a moment, using a state-of-the-art technique – divisionism (definition: painting patches of clean colors next to one another in such a way that from a distance they would visually overlap, creating complementary colors). From that moment on, the way a painting was painted was more important than what it showed.
As children we were never afraid of asking questions, expressing our opinions, and clearly saying what we wanted. As children, we were free. Free from generally prevailing conventions and Savoir Vivre. We never thought about what was appropriate and what was not. Our unlimited freedom for action allowed us to explore the world, to watch the reality carelessly. We asked, touched, tried…
As we grew older, the world started setting boundaries. It started to impose norms and forms of behaviors that were obligatory in “normal” and “adult” life. We did not splash in puddles anymore, checking how deep the water was. We did not put our hands into the fire, checking if it was really hot. The explorers within us started to vanish. And as they went, they took all our ideas, curiosity, and innovation.
Most of us, adults, have already lost the ability to think differently. We know that fire burns, that puddles are not to be splashed into and that we have to act in a certain way in certain situations. We, together with our surroundings, kept depriving ourselves of creative thinking over the years. Only a few have maintained it. They still have this gift of perceiving the world “differently”. Differently, but how?
Creativity is the ability to think in opposition to generally accepted rules. It means expressing views and thoughts that are not in line with the opinion of the majority. In order to create something great, you need to be courageous, free yourself from the boundaries of conventions, to think differently, without observing manmade rules. Such a way of living exposes us to criticism from people around us, but it is the only way to create something new. Only then can we be creative, only then can we call ourselves “creators”.
