november 17, 2008: "Creativity Is" by shang
Creativity may start out with a rush of unfiltered excitement and anticipation as you and your creative partner get signed on by a client. You look at the creative brief and somewhere deep down you know you were meant for each other. There are limitless possibilities to explore and develop, and you are the one destined to bring them to fruition.
Three days later, creativity is staring bitterly at the brief as if it were a girlfriend who had just cheated on you. All those promises of a creative plethora turned out to be empty. And on top of that, the stupid brief has the gall to rub salt in your wounds by mocking your inability to come up with anything other than that stupid jingle. You flush the brief down the toilet.
A while later, creativity is reprinting the brief and then regrouping for battle. You look for a weakness. You find out some random interesting facts about the client, none of which really help you. You watch a bunch of award winning commercials and have a good laugh, then realize that didn’t really help either. You try a different approach and drink a beer for inspiration, only to find out it just made it harder to think. Suddenly, a moment of brilliant inspiration strikes. You furiously scribble down your idea and describe it to your creative partner, who looks at you with a blank stare. You sigh. You deserve a break.
You get back and re-examine your day’s work. It all sucks. You sigh and drink another beer and then call it a night.
A couple days later, creativity is looking at all the random little bits and pieces that you’ve come up with so far. They aren’t all that bad, and you know there’s some way to fit all these together to make something cohesive and compelling. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, except you’re blind and have no idea what the final image is supposed to be. But you’re stubborn enough to try. That’s why you’re getting paid the big bucks. That’s why you aren’t going to be one of the thousands of youtube videos that get no hits. Unless… you are.
Creativity is always the fear of not being creative. Of not being able to come up with anything that meets the client’s standards, much less your own. Sure, you’ve done some good stuff before, but maybe that was just luck. So you wonder if you really have it in you, or if you’re destined to make those early morning infomercials that everyone hates, or worse, become an account manager. You watch the deadline creep up on you day by day, realizing you have to come up with a good idea, but then you watch The Office instead for “creative inspiration” and hope your partner comes up with something good.
Creativity is waking up at 4AM with a random idea. Groggily scribbling it down on a sticky note after you pee. And then going back to sleep.
Creativity is staring at the idea the next morning and having no idea how you could be so amazingly brilliant in your sleep. This is definitely the one you've been praying for. Even better actually. You surprise yourself sometimes.
And then, creativity is repeating this entire process at least three more times to make sure you’ll have at least one idea that’ll overcome the client’s terrible taste.
Creativity ends with the realization that creativity doesn’t really end. It’s the realization that creativity is nothing less than a journey, and like all journeys, the destination doesn’t matter so much as the journey itself. And the journey itself constitutes all of the creative projects you take on, each one letting you explore a little more about yourself and opening up a little more opportunity to be even more creative. And despite all the trials and tribulations, you realize that each and every project is your greatest achievement, simply because as a creative, that’s how you ended up where you are now.
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