Creativity According To People Who Are A Lot Smarter Than Me

I don't know if any of you have started to notice, but I'm fascinated by creativity.  I'm fascinated by what people think creativity is, how people define creativity, what is recognized as "creative", how creativity affects our experience in life, how to develop creativity, pretty much anything about creativity.  I've found some fascinating videos on creativity.

The first one is by a man named Larry Lessig and his video is on Laws That Choke Creativity | Video on TED.com.  This guy is fascinated by the idea of copyright and how it works in this internet age where kids, teenagers, young adults, and other creative minds have access to so many videos, pictures, music and editing and producing devices where they can make their own videos out of stuff that other people have already used, just make it their own.  He discusses how laws need to change to allow this to happen in a legal manner that could also benefit the people who originally come up with the material.  Highly recommend watching this one.

The next video I found was by Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com.  Elizabeth Gilbert is the woman who wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" which is a good book - if you skip the "love" part.  But I really found her talk fascinating because she discussed how since early times creative people have given the credit of their creativity to "geniuses" or "gods" of some sort or another.  They always knew the creativity didn't come from them.  Only fairly recently (think around the time period of the renaissance) did people start to give the credit to themselves.  All through out her talk I just wanted to shout out to her and say "You've got so much truth about creativity and inspiration, but if I could just explain to you one or two more things that I have learned about creativity, you would understand that it really is God who you need to thank for creativity and how He feels about creativity."  More on that later.  Seriously though, an amazing video.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com And Ken Robinson makes a very good argument that schools kill creativity.  He's hilarious and I completely agree with him.  I can't remember if it was in this one or another video I watched with him, but he gave me one of my new favorite quotes.  "Some people say that college begins in Kindergarten.  No it doesn't! Kindergarten begins in Kindergarten!"

This video Amy Tan on creativity | Video on TED.com was an interesting one, but I didn't necessarily agree with her.  She uses creativity to handle tragedy in her life - which is great.  But she makes the argument that bad things happen to good people because life is random, which made me just want to go up to her and be like "Let me explain to you what I have learned about why bad things happen to good people."  Especially since the day after I watched this video my institute class was all about why bad things happen to good people.  Coincidence?  I think not.

This article "Happiness, Your Heritage" a message on creativity by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf is the one that I wish I could've shared with Elizabeth Gilbert.  It is still my all time favorite message on creativity.

Now that I've been inspired I'm going to go try and create!  What will I create?  I'm not sure yet, but I will try to go out and create something new.

Cooking Adventures

Today I decided to experiment with zucchini.  I've had some for about a week but I didn't really know what to do with it and it was about to go bad. As my mother will attest, I love to cook.  And as my roommates will attest I don't always follow (or have) a recipe.  Today for lunch I cut up some zucchini and some fresh tomatoes and sauteed them in canola oil for a little while.  I added some garlic salt, onion, italian seasoning, oregano, and parsley. I felt like they needed something so I searched my cabinet and found soy sauce and sesame seed oil and added them to the mixture.  I let them boil and then simmer while I cooked up some brown rice.  I was really surprised how good it was, it was super yummy.

I used the rest of the zucchini backing them like chips in the oven.  I used garlic salt, onion, italian seasoning, and parsley on them as well and then just let them bake.  I put some cheese on one batch, just to shake things up and because everybody knows everything tastes better with cheese.

Now off to the fun that is studying, laundry, and cleaning.  :)

NYC Scenes Continued

First sight of the Angel Moroni in Manhattan.

Mason didn't want me to take a picture haha.

This is where we had breakfast and "the best cheesecake in America".  Yummy!  

Another lyrical poetic thingy... Just for fun...

This one was inspired by a boy. Dumb and cliche I know. This particular boy I've known for a year or two and we've become really good friends. I thought maybe we could be more but I was wrong. This is what i would say to him if I could only find the courage.

Everytime I saw you
I smiled
Everytime I saw you
My heart skipped a beat
Without even knowing it
I fell for you

You listened to me like no one else
Everytime I saw you
You cared like no one had before
Everytime I saw you
Before I knew it
You were my best friend

Imagine my surprise when when you first asked me about her
I tried to brush it off
No big deal
Then you cornered me
I had no escape
You told me about the date
The one you took her on
The one I had waited years for
My heart broke just a little
Ad my secret hope was
Crushed
Right before my eyes

Everytime I see you now
I pretend to smile
Everytime I see you mow
Mu heart breaks a little more
Wihout even knowing it
You broke my heart
Something you never meant to do

You tell me about her and no one else
Everytime I see you now
You hurt me like no one has before
Everytime i see you now
Bedew I knew it
I started avoiding you

I know you don't understand why
Neither do I
I tried not to fall for you
I didn't even know I had
Until I saw you in her arms
I knew when I saw her I had lost my chance
How can I compare to her?
I tried to talk myself out of feeling the way I do
Maybe I will with time and distance
It's my only hope

So this is how it ends
My only regret is not telling you how I felt
My only regret is not telling you how I still feel.
I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Sometimes I Write "Poetic Lyricalish Thingies"

But I don't share them very often. But sometimes I do.  This one was inspired but this cute old couple I saw driving one day on my way to work. It's kinda super long and I'm still working on it but I thought I'd share it anyway.  Enjoy!

We're cruising down the road

Just like we always dreamed we would

In a bright red corvette

The car we dreamed of for years

Seemed so out of reach

But so did ending up with you.

I look over and smile

As the wind tosses your silver hair
I take a picture in my mind

Who would've thought we'd be so in love

Fifty years down the road.

I guess that's why they called it the golden years

Driving down the streets of gold.

The years have flown since we first met

We were just kids

Hadn't grown up just yet

We played in fields of yellow-green

Without a care in the world 

Out of all of my friends

You were always the best

We may have grown

But we never aged

We've just had to learn

How to turn the page.

Before I knew it we were more then friends
I had fallen for my best friend
You looked so handsome in your new suit
That day we started new.
I wore my best dress
We danced the night away
We had each other
And that was all that mattered
As we started to take on the world.

The next page showed a new beginning

A new marriage, a new family, a new life

A new school, new jobs, a new house.

We wondered how we would make it

Through those years of newness

Trying to figure how to make it through life

You were always there
Every step of the way down these streets of gold
On every page of grief and hardship
Every page of happiness and joy
We were together.

The seasons changed continuously
Spring into summer
Summer into fall
Fall into winter
Winter into spring
Over and over again
The days, the months, the years flew by
Our family grew and so did we
We watched our children's childhood fly by
We worked our lives away
We saved, scrimped, and sacrificed for this family
For this life we had dreamed of
Since that very first day
Eventually they were all gone
All we have is each other
Like the years that went before.

I guess that's why they call it the golden years
Because the wrinkles, creases,
 and little imperfections in your skin
And your silver hair
Take away my breath
Just like your perfect skin
And your golden hair
Did fifty years ago
Now that we've achieved our dreams
I'm happy to be riding down that golden road
Just me and you.

Guess What I'm Doing?

I'm learning to play two Awesome songs. Eight Days A Week by the Beatles and  Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift.  Yeah, I'm super excited.  Yay internet for providing free sheet music!  :)

That's All.

Creativity

I've been listening to this every morning as I get ready for classes and it has got me thinking about creativity.  I have never really thought of myself as a creative person, as a matter of fact I've pretty much always pictured myself as an epic failure at anything remotely creative. 

I play the piano and I play beautifully when it's just for myself, but I epically fail at it whenever anyone else listens (which totally makes it sound like I'm lying about the fact that I can play at all, but I really can, I just freeze up whenever anyone else is around.) But I enjoy playing for myself, and I will play for others when called upon. 

I have never been one for art.  First graders draw better than me.  I'm still learning to color in the lines.  My 4th grade teacher even sat down and gave me a "private lesson on how to color in the lines" once.  Yeah.  I'm that good.

I loved to sew clothes and cross stitch when I was younger.  I fancied myself a little pioneer.  I wasn't very good, but I enjoyed it.  I kind of want to start sewing up again.  I made a quilt this summer and I semi-recently bought some new patterns for clothes.

I love writing/storytelling but again, I'm not super good at it.  If I try to hand write anything, no one else can read it (handwriting was the one thing that was consistently on my report card through out elementary school that I needed to improve on, K-6th grade) and I have this nasty tendency to completely ignore/make-up my own spellings/words/grammar (thank goodness for computers/spell check).  And I don't really like other people reading my writing (that's the hardest part about this blog, I'm putting it out there for anyone to read and judge) because I don't like people correcting/editing/judging my work (and therefore me.  I'm super logical like that.  If anyone tells me I spelled a word wrong I think that means they hate me) but I'm getting better at it.  And I'm really bad at finishing my writing (I'm really good at starting my writing though!) But I enjoy writing lots of different things, stories, poems, thoughts, quotes, journal entries, and blog posts.

I love to cook and I also love to eat.  I'm still a slow cooker (wait, that's not what I meant to say) It takes me a long time to make a meal (I pretty much have to double preparation times on most meals) and I make a lot of mistakes but I really enjoy it anyway.  Eating has always rocked my socks.  I'm not really sure if eating is creative though...

I blog (no really?) which I suppose is somewhat creative, as is journaling. 

I'm not really creative in any other way though.  And I'm not great at the creative projects I do pursue.  But through listening to these thoughts on creativity I'm learning that it's not really about being the best or most creative at whatever creative pursuits you do.  It's about enjoying the process of creating and knowing that it was through your effort that something new was made, no matter the quality.  I'm learning to just enjoy creating no matter the quality of the end result.  As long as I'm enjoying it, nothing else matters.