Creativity, according to Maya Angelou, is a bottomless pit: "The more you use it, the more you have," said the novelist. "Creativity is intelligence having fun," is a phrase often attributed to Einstein. While advertising supremo David Ogilvy came at it from a business perspective: "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative". We know creativity is alive in all fields of life, from medicine to business and agriculture. But the word – which derives from the Latin creare, to make – is most often associated with the arts and culture.
"Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy – pure creative energy," is the first of 10 basic principles to be found in Julia Cameron's bestselling creative guide, The Artist's Way. It is subtitled A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity because, she tells BBC Culture, "creativity is, to my eye, a spiritual experience". For Cameron, there is no "creative elite"; we are all creative, she says. And while she began life as a scriptwriter – and continues to write novels, poetry and songs – it has become her life's work to teach the many thousands from all creative fields who come to her artistically hampered by the demons of self-doubt and self-criticism, or claiming lack of time or talent.
The freedom to make mistakes, especially at a young age, is vital to creativity, according to the late Sir Ken Robinson, a leading force in creative and cultural education. Robinson's TED talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity? is the most watched video in TED's history. "We know that if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original," he said. He bemoaned the fact we often "get educated out of creativity", seeing it as a failure of the education system.
Beverley D'Silva
Features correspondent, BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel
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