Where creativity does comes from?

“We share 98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees. What makes us different – our language, values, artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technology – is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning. Without creativity, it would be difficult indeed to distinguish humans from apes.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Creativity is part of human behavior that develops through the years. We have instincts of self-preservation, that allows our survival and defense mechanisms to have an important role, but we also have a contradictory set of rules. The need to create, invent and explore. Those involve risk and reward, but without them, there would be no evolution, no curiosity, no novelty. Dreams would be a mere word, days would be spent conserving energy to merely stay alive. No purpose, other than survival. Yet, we do dream and some of us, dare to take the risks, knowing that success is not granted. Is creativity a disguised mechanism for self-preservation?

Two things that creativity needs in order to flourish are being playfulness and encouragement. The will to face obstacles, despite how risky the adventure can be, but also turning the adventure into a playful environment. Without such behavior, creativity is easily abandoned.

The power of creativity

“The results of the creativity enrich the culture and so they indirectly improve the quality of all our lives.”(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Creativity gives purpose and meaning to actions, but the true knowledge of the creative process does not come with end result or with the success, it comes with the journey.

Society tend to view creative people, mainly artists as dreamers that fantasize in their own world, that have little or no importance in the real world. Although there’s a sense of truth in that, it’s also how humans interpret the world. The same way science without humans is useless. Science is how humans found a way to interpret the universe. We create new domains and worlds that give us a sense of reality or new realities to better enjoy life at is best.

Creative people are experts at finding hope in darker situations. They create their own narrative with the purpose of being successful, like an athlete. However, there’s a big difference between a regular athlete and creative person. Both have to endure physical and mental challenges, but for a lot of creative minds, it’s a lifelong challenge, surrounded with fails and doubts. Yet, they keep pushing forward, focusing their energy on the domain they love. Would you dedicate your life to a craft where learning never ends, failing is certain and success is a merely a vision in the horizon? A creative person will, not because he or she likes to face challenges all the time, it’s because they have found a deep connection with the craft, and without it, life feels incomplete.

A lot of this novelty, about facing the unknown, finding hope where no light shines and keep moving forward, despite the challenges; refusing to surrender, even in the darkest times, it’s part of our survival instinct. These narratives have helped us survive in painful and unknown environments / situations. Writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien, are experts at crafting fantasy worlds, where moral lessons and values gain greater dimension than the story itself. Without such novelty, in the face of adversity, life can feel empty.

“The quality I look for most is optimism: especially optimism in the face of reverses and apparent defeat. Optimism is true moral courage.” (Sir Ernest Shackleton)

Understanding the domain (craft)

"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." (Claude Debussy)

Creativity, although vague and multi-disciplinary, usually thrives on a specific domain, ranging from broad domains as arts and science, to narrower domains such as classical music or mathematics.

It’s by learning those patterns of the domain that one understands its rules. To create something over a specific domain, one must first understand its foundations. For instance, if you don’t know how to paint but still paint a portrait, the process itself can be creative and fun, but it won’t be accepted by the domain peers as a great work of art. When a domain accepts the work as successful and creative, it means that the creator respected the field, even if decided to break some of the ‘rules’. One can make a great piece of art, but its recognition only comes when the domain peers accept it as such. Each domain is enriched with deeper knowledge by the generation of new creative ideas. All of that process contributes to the cultural evolution.

Some individuals have later recognition in their domain, but that doesn’t stop them from doing what they enjoy. One curious case is Philip Glass. When you break the rules of a domain, not everyone will be pleased, especially those that are hard conservatives within that domain. There is a fine line between something highly creative and meaningful and something that is entirely random. However, it is not solely the creator who determines the worth of their work; it is also the validation of their peers within the domain. Society may offer words of encouragement or appreciation for a creative idea, but ultimately, it is the domain experts who can recognize and label it as a significant cultural advancement.

Pursuing success in a craft is only one part of it, since a great deal of the enjoyment comes from the process. It’s during this process that a person enters in the state of flow, where the experience feels most enjoyable and time flies by. Even if the final product is not approved by the domain peers, this sense of flow, makes it still worth it.

“Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Thinking outside the box is a way to generate ideas, but slowly creating your own box can also generate ideas that adhere to your own set of rules. Rules are not inherently bad, in fact, they provide a framework for ideas to have coherence. Without rules, ideas would be random. When ideas share a common value or set of rules, it becomes easier to assign meaning to them.

Problem solving

Why do we generate ideas during other activities? Like when taking a shower, going for a walk, running, swimming or even when laying down exactly before going to sleep? Creativity is not a child of linear thought, logical reasoning or predictability. Creativity comes from breaking and connecting different patterns, linking different ideas from different domains. When we are doing other activities, rather than totally focusing on thinking, our brain operates differently. First, the brain devotes attention to the major activity, while, in the “backstage”, thoughts flow, without much attention. As soon as we find a connection between the thoughts, an idea is generated; that moment is also known as the “eureka moment”. Later on, that idea needs to be evaluated and elaborated, otherwise, it might not be as good as one thinks. Usually that process is done by experimentation and testing, in an iterative process.

“Two things are required. One is a brain. And second is the willingness to spend long times in thinking, with a definite possibility that you come out with nothing.” (Hans Bethe)

The importance of self-feedback for success

One important aspect for the success of a creative idea is the perception of self-feedback. How can one know if an idea is the best one? Will it evolve into a better solution? To test and refine an idea, feedback is extremely important.

How a music composer does knows that the theme he wrote will have an emotional impact on the audience? Is through mechanisms of self-evaluation and self-feedback. That’s why successful creative people tend to be seen as perfectionists in their craft. They have developed the ability to recognize when an idea is good or bad without relying on external feedback from their peers. Sometimes, this behavior can make them even more doubtful about some of their ideas, even if later those ideas prove to be highly successful.

This process of experimentation and feedback can be felt as a burden for the creator. Although while during the process, they’re in the state of flow, there is a big possibility of that idea never becoming successful; all of that effort becoming ‘meaningless’. Yet, despite the struggle, they embrace the adventure.

In the world of UX, self-feedback is not as helpful as in other fields, since the solution is not for the creator’s pleasure, but for the user. In this case, external feedback from the public, such as personas, is extremely valuable. Unlike art, science and other domains, the success does not comes from the domain peers approval, but the approval of the main target audience, the users. Although a UX designer and a music composer can share a similar path to obtain a creative idea, the development of it, will change, but both go through the process of experimentation, testing, observation and feedback.

Too odd for society?

Creative individuals are usually considered odd by society. They spent a lot of time on their own and that’s usually seen as a negative aspect by society. A regular person often finds it challenging to be alone and actively seeks pleasure and entertainment. A creative person focus their energy towards their craft and usually that translates into a mindset of no distractions. How can you become good at one craft without dedicating the time it needs? While for the vast majority, being alone is seeing as boring, for the creative mind working on the craft, might spark the opposite feeling, a feeling of excitement.

“In fact, creative people are neither single-minded, specialized, nor selfish. Indeed, they seem to be the opposite: They love to make connections with adjacent areas of knowledge. They tend to be – in principle – caring and sensitive. Yet the demands of their role inevitably push them toward specialization and selfishness. Of the many paradoxes of creativity, this is perhaps the most difficult to avoid.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Not all creative individuals are alike in terms of personality. Some are more introverted and others extroverted, but one thing they all have in common is ‘they all love what they do’. Independently of the fame and money, they’re moved by the desire to learn more, in order to better craft a project / solution. Unlike people who go after the money, the creative individual doesn’t need that as an incentive to keep going forward. Even if the craft alone does not bring any money, it brings something that money cannot buy. That feeling of learning and overcoming obstacles, while being playful, translates into a flow state that enriches life in a special way.

“You invent for the hell of it. I don’t start with the idea, ‘What will make money?’ This is a rough world; money’s important. But if I have to trade between what’s fun for me and what’s money-making, I’ll take what’s fun.” (Jacob Rainbow)

Creativity and UX

In terms of UX, creativity also plays an important role, during the ideation phase, where the main goal is to generate as much ideas as possible to later test them and gather feedback for improvement. Although the goal is not to create a work of art or formulate a new physics theory, there are similarities in process of creativity. In the same way an artist feels inspired by observing nature, a UX designer also feels inspired by observing people’s behaviors. Overall, both create to deliver a better experience, and both, using different mechanisms, make the sure the experience is appropriated and fluid. While a work of art can be very complex to understand, there’s always a group of people capable of understanding its full potential. Usually those are considered specialized in their domain and in the UX field they’re known as advanced users. In other words, not all ideas will be interpreted in the same way and depending on the context and the person using it, it’ll dictate how good the experience was.