“I’m not a creative person” (and other myths from a modern world)

I was 5 or 6 years old when I first learned that I was terrible at drawing.

I seemed to lack a basic awareness of shape. I had a brilliant book which broke various animals down into squares, circles and triangles. Yet still, my sharks looked like terrifying hybrids and my elephants like amorphous blobs.

For years, I didn’t draw.

I would announce in conversation that I was “terrible at art”. As I got older – and wove performance art into the narrative of my life – it became a source of mild shock to people that I could be so dreadful at it.

 Then, in my twenties, navigating a messy divorce and the realities of single parenting, I discovered something unexpected.

 I didn’t have the words.

 In the depths of emotion, I couldn’t get my voice to work like it always had. For the first time in my life, the music seemed to have deserted me.

 In my hour of greatest need.

 So I picked up a paintbrush.

 I didn’t plan to paint a landscape. I didn’t need to be good at shapes. I just knew that something inside me needed to come out, and this was as good a way as any.

 I dipped the paintbrush into black ink. Not paint, but ink.

 I didn’t think about the phrase “a heart as black as ink” at the time, but in hindsight…

 And I brushed that black ink in one long, curved line across my page.

 I stepped back. And that was it.

 A blank sheet of paper, without purpose, without a conventional vision of beauty, bearing one thick black scar across its centre.

I was done. I had expressed myself. The relief was palpable.

Not long after, the music returned.

And I wrote the first song I ever released.

The myth of talent

At least 6,700 years ago, human beings were drawing things on cave walls. And let’s be very clear – by modern standards, these cave paintings look very basic. If you wanted to submit them to the Tate Gallery, you’d need an excellent story to accompany them.

Since then the world has seen thousands, if not millions, of artistic styles, across visual arts, music, theatre, fashion, design, architecture and everything else. And in that time, what has been deemed “good” has shifted across cultures and centuries.

Perhaps, then, talent isn’t a fixed concept.

Perhaps, then, creativity has never really been about being talented.

Perhaps, then, creativity has always been the way that humans make meaning.

Could it be that creativity isn’t a personality type, or a talent, but simply an inherent part of being human?

Creativity as communication

Humans are not the only species that uses some form of language to communicate. Bonobo monkeys, for example, have a variety of different sounds and combinations that they use to convey danger, or that they have found food.

In all the time they have been studied, however, nobody yet has heard a bonobo monkey come up with a completely novel sound effect.

Bonobo monkeys don’t make up rude words for animals they don’t like. Not like the humans, who at the peak of their creativity come up with terms like “cockwomble”.

Bonobo monkeys don’t invent animals they’ve never seen and give them names, like the ancient humans who thought up the centaur.

Bonobo monkeys, as far as we can tell, don’t look up at the night sky and imagine that they can see shapes in the stars, and give those shapes names like Virgo.

The creativity to dream up words and creatures and shapes in the stars is not a hiccup in human characteristics. It is a fundamental part of what makes us human.

Whether you’re describing somebody’s state of inebriation with yet another great linguistic euphemism (“he was totally barbered”), choosing an outfit that says something about you, or picking out a paint for the walls that radiates a feeling of calm, you are using creativity to communicate.

It is woven into the very fabric of who we are.

“I’m not creative usually means…”

“I wasn’t very good at drawing when I was in Year 3”

Honestly, same!

But the good news is, what you create doesn’t have to be good to benefit your health.

Some of the most celebrated art in history is uncomfortable, strange, even unpleasant to look at or listen to. Much of what appears on the runway at London Fashion Week is designed to provoke, not to be worn to Tesco.

John Cage wrote one of the most talked-about pieces of music ever composed – and not a single note was played.

Creativity has never required applause.

It requires expression.

When you create, it doesn’t have to look or sound good. It just has to do what you needed it to do.

 If that’s throwing paint at a wall to feel release, fine.

If it’s dancing around your kitchen to settle your nerves, great.

If it’s mastering a particular skill over years of practice – go for it!

If it’s creating a masterpiece for the ages – you might want to adjust your expectations.

For now.

You and Me, Baby, Ain’t Nothing But Humans

So, great news! You don’t have to learn to be creative. You just need to be reminded, because you always have been.

And you can learn to be more intentional when you’re creative, so that you can make the most of the time you spend.

Listening to music without distractions, to fully experience it for a few minutes each day.

Breathing in the glorious smell of the spices as you choose which ones to put in dinner tonight.

Noticing the tension leave your shoulders when you start dancing to your favourite vibes.

Observing, and sitting with, the vast range of emotions when you watch a good movie or series.

And, when you’re feeling confident enough, expressing yourself creatively, whether you reckon it’s good or not.

You were never “not creative”.

You were just measuring yourself against made up standards.