And Furthermore, Not Everyone is Creative

How's that for a little early-morning heresy? I can hear the sound of tightening lips and  rolling eyes from here.

But it's true, and I think many of us in The Mixed Media Community do people a disservice when we insist that, oh, yes, everyone is creative, and everyone is an artist. We don't mean to, of course. Most of us are generally nice people. It's just that creativity and Making Stuff is so important to us, so much a part of what makes our lives good, that we assume the same must be true for everyone else: that Making Stuff (art, music, mathematical formulae or scientific theorems) would make their world sing, too. All we have to do is encourage them to give it a go, and their world will be so much better.

It all comes back to what we were talking about yesterday: we are a tribal people. At least we're told we are. We're told we're all alike, and we seem to have taken that to heart. If we love making stuff, then everybody else sees its value, too. They realize that it's important, but they lack the confidence to jump in and Just Do It. Our job, then, as Nice People, is to help them see that they are, indeed, creative, and that they, too, can Make Stuff.

It's just like when people tell me I'd make a wonderful mother. Or, now, that I *would have made* a wonderful mother. Or would now make a wonderful grandmother. Never mind that I have no interest in children or motherhood or that kind of nurturing: the people who say this to me are people for whom motherhood is so central to who they are that they can't imagine someone else not valuing it, too. [Note: men have never said this to me; it's always women.] They're nice people; they think I'm nice. They value motherhood, therefore I must value it, too, but have some hole in my self-confidence that prevents me from seeing what an excellent mother I would have been. Same with religious people. I've been told that I'm actually religious, specifically, that I'm actually Christian, but just haven't realized it yet. The person who said this wasn't suggesting I was delusional; she really believed that because her religion was so important to her, and because I was a seemingly nice person, I must secretly share her values. All of these people believe that all that's required is their encouragement: if they just cheer other people on, they'll realize their creativity or natural instincts or religious belief or whatever it is.

But none of that is necessary. Creativity may be at the very core of our personality and what makes us happiest right up there next to GiGi's cupcakes, but that doesn't mean it needs to be central to the lives of everyone else. When people come up to us and say, "Oh, you're so creative! I'm not creative at all," we fell compelled to say, brightly, "Sure you are! Everyone is creative!"

Have you ever stopped to think about how this makes them feel? Do you think they are suddenly struck with the realization that they are--whoa!--A Creative Person, and that this fills them with hope and light and a renewed zest for life? Probably not. And you know why? Because if that person is an adult, chances are they know more about themselves than we do. Chances are if they think they're not creative, they have something. We're not talking about people who want to be more creative--people who say, "I'd like to be more creative"--that's a whole nother thing, and I give you permission to help them to your heart's content. They want to nurture their creativity, and they're willing to accept your assistance. But those other people? The ones who say they're not creative? They're not bemoaning the fact. They're not saying they wish they were. They're making a statement about themselves: I'm not creative. It's like saying, "I don't like to run." Or "I don't like squash." Or "I love singing." It's an observation they're making about themselves, not a plea for help. Who are we to argue with them, and who are we--and this is the core of what I'm trying to get at--who are we to think that being creative is the only way to a happy life? And now here we are insisting that they are, in fact, creative. What that might mean to them is that if they weren't such a slacker, they would have realized that they are creative, so they'd better get busy and figure out how to knit. Or something.

People who are not creative (and let's not quibble about that, arguing that everyone is creative because everyone makes their sandwich differently or puts together outfits from the clothes in their closets--come on, people; you know that's not what we're talking about here) are not bad people. They're not lazy. They're not slackers. They live lives just like everyone else. I had a job once, the longest stretch of time I've ever spent at a full-time job (I should add here, lest I sound like someone who can't hold a job, that I've had other jobs for way longer--I subbed for 16 years; I've been writing for magazines for 21 years--but they aren't considered full-time jobs), at the Department of Animal Control. I was classed as a clerk-typist, fairly low on the ladder. Down at the bottom, probably. Holding the ladder for those climbing it, I'm guessing. But never mind: it was a full-time job with decent benefits, and I did it for four years, and it had, at its core, no room whatsoever for creativity (it did morph into something else, where I did public relations and media stuff; but that wasn't how it was designed). What I did was keep track of the animals who came into and out of the shelter. I counted dogs, pretty much. It was a totally organizational job, very, very anal-retentive with no room for error, and I was good at it. I liked it: I liked the keeping track and organizing and making things add up and be all neat, and I could probably have kept doing it for years. Well, except for the drug dealing and prostitution and sexual harassment that went on pretty much every day. Except for that! I could have spent my life doing that work, at a job with a pension and benefits, and it would have worked out. Now, I love my life way more now, and I'm incredibly lucky to get to do what I do, but having had another sort of life, I don't think they're all that horrid. (While I had some small creative interests outside of work, I didn't do much back then; I was young and in love and newly married). In fact, those four years I spent at Animal Control led to many of the things I believe about people, both good and bad, including the central belief that we. Are. Not. All. Alike. Not on the surface, and not even at our core (and, yes, we already talked yesterday about needing food and shelter and all that--no nitpicking here!).

I think we want to believe we're all basically alike and that we all share those core values and that everyone else values creativity just like we do because: we're basically pretty insecure about our choices and who we are and what we do. Those of us who have chosen to follow the creative life aren't too sure that it's as valuable as we think it is. We've sacrificed some stuff to live this life, and we aren't seeing a lot of tangible, real-world benefits (read: money, 401K, community acclaim). But if everyone else values the same things we do, then those things are, by definition, valuable--and it validates the choices we have made. If everyone else sees the value in holing up in the spare bedroom after dinner and spreading glue on magazine pages, then it is, too, important! And your partner can't tell you it isn't, so there.

And of course there's another reason: if we're trying to sell ourselves and our work, then we REALLY want other people to be just like us so they'll give us their money, but that's a whole nother thing and I don't want to go there this morning.

I think that, as fully mature adults, we have to accept who we are and the choices we make and understand that those have value whether or not everyone else embraces them. We have to realize that we are different--we all are different--and that that's OK. I write about this a lot because it's taken me so long to understand it. For so long, I tried to fit in--I've talked about that. But it's deeper than just fitting into a community, however you define "community": it's about belonging and family, about what we think a life looks like, about the things we're supposed to think are important: friends, community, security, acceptance. We assume everyone else values those things. If your friends are the most important thing in your life, you can't imagine the life of someone who lives and works alone. You assume they're incredibly lonely because we're told that everyone needs community, that it's the most important thing in life. But there are people for whom that's not true, people who have worlds inside their heads, things they want to pursue and think about. They're not all crazy Unibombers; some are geniuses, and some are mad, and some are just people who prefer to be alone.

There are people who own very little. They don't acquire stuff, nor do they have any desire to. There are people who don't like animals, or physical activity, or food--yes, I know people who have no interest in food other than as a necessary fuel, and this is neither good nor bad--and there's another key: none of these choices and ways of living a life are good or bad. If you're not hurting any living creature or impinging negatively on other people's lives (destroying or taking their stuff, irritating their dog, fouling their air), then there's no reason judgement should be made. If you're creating, that's OK. If you're not, that's OK, too. There are people in the world who love music and listen to it constantly but have absolutely no desire to create music. There are people who surround themselves with art but have no desire to make it themselves. There are people who read but don't want to write, who watch movies but don't want to make them, who love clothes but have no interest in sewing. And that is OK.

In fact, it's way better than OK. I find more and more that I really like talking to people who are not like me. We spend much of our time when we meet people trying to figure out the things we have in common, trying to make those connections. That really doesn't interest me. The things we have in common are things I already know about; what's really interesting to me are the things about you that are foreign to me. I like hearing about jobs I've never thought about, about interests and passions I've never considered. The Scooter Guy? Remember the post about him from last week? He was interesting to me. On his MySpace page were photos of him naked from the waist up, shooting the finger at the camera with both hands. An image of a confederate flag. He'd recently shaved his head.  But he didn't talk about those things. He wasn't some frothing hater. He talked about other stuff that, whether real or imagined, was foreign to me and, therefore, interesting. (Of course, it would have been way more interesting to me personally if I could have known whether or not it was true because I'm kind of a plodder who likes to know if we're talking about The Real World or the one that exists only in your head. But that's just me.)

OK--now I've ceased being useful and am just writing about myself, and that's boring, so I'll quit and get to work. But I think this is so important, this understanding that we're not all alike and we don't need to be alike and that while the advertisers and movie-makers and commentators on culture have a vested interest in making us *believe* we are all alike, that's simply not the case. It's a huge, rich, complicated, confusing, wonderful world filled with amazing, confusing, boring, exciting, entertaining, inspiring, irritating, charming people. And isn't that marvelous?