The Creative You

Creativity is not being able to draw realistic figures and splash up impeccable colour combinations on a canvas. Far from that, very very far from that.

Daily, we all engage in creative endeavours more often than we think. We don't really need crayons to live a creative life.  I'll expound on this a little later in this blog.

The very fact that we exist here in flesh, is an act of creation. The very fact that we are still breathing at this point of our life, required continuous creative processes.

Simply put, everyone is an artist and everyone is creative.

If anyone convinces you otherwise, that person has not realised yet that inventing that lie of a story that you are not creative, is already a creative act.

The journey begins the moment we open our eyes in the morning. We might think that habits are boring routines, but the birth of that habit began as a conscious or unconscious act of creation carried forward. I won't bore you with intellectual debacles on what is creativity because that would be missing the forest in the myriad of trees, but as usual, I want to jump into the how of things - things that you may have already been doing.


I thought I'll make a short list of where we can exercise creativity (though it's in everything, really and we are all already doing it) where it is not more obvious.

a) Cooking: We use our creativity when we reinvent a dish, sometimes according to availability of ingredients or other resources. Plating and presentation of our dishes at home as we serve them to our kids (or parents), is a fun way to exercise creativity. Simply put, express ourselves.

b) Interior Designing: My father loves to re-arrange furnitures at home and war begins when someone moves the couch or the shelf. This is what happens when someone paints over my painting. Most of us don't hire interior designers to create our personal spaces. But doesn't it excite us to mix & match the colours of the curtains with the carpet or decide where to put this and that on the wall or on the shelf? It's an exciting creative act! (But you know that already) Our personal spaces can be our masterpieces (or works in progress).

c) Raising our Children: Some of us might think that this area could exhaust our creativity, huh? It's almost unbelievable how we, as parents, constantly brainstorm or find inspiration in ways to raise our kids to be more loving, honest, generous, structured, outgoing or tempered. Like a sketch before a painting, at times I plan/create different strategies to expose my daughter to things that I may find inspiring for her; and at times, it's totally intuitive, like my abstract paintings. It requires a lot of creativity to plan and execute "How to make studying more fun" or "How to make housekeeping more enjoyable" for Aaliaa.

d) Careers/Businesses: To those who have desk jobs, some may think that there's hardly any creativity involved. If you are surrounded by people and have to relate with people, voila, you engage in creative ways to reach them, serve them, avoid them, inspire them, please them or attack them. We create ways how to work smartly, save energy or multi-task to make the best of our days. It takes creativity to simply navigate through a day, and make it out smiling with our hair still all nicely tucked in a bun. And of course, we know we constantly find creative solutions to problems in the everyday running of our businesses, thinking of ways to expand it etc.

e) Dressing Up: Which colour matches with which? We are our own fashion consultants. Sometimes we match the neutrals with primary colours, the plains with the prints or balance the hues. It's pretty much like painting! It requires knowledge of colours, balance and composition.


The list goes on and on. Yet for those who truly want to explore the more obvious ones like painting, music, writing, designing, photography etc. I encourage you to plunge on and be fearless.

I'll "say" it again. Everyone is an artist.

Many argue that art has a standard. You create your own standard. If your intention is self-expression, there is no way you can fail. Not only because there is really no such thing as failure (because it is a part of success) - but how can anything be about you, expressed, be wrong?

Skill is another set of ball game. That comes with practice, observation, learning, trial and error and time. Truly, we should not label ourselves uncreative, just because the first time we held a pencil without mentoring, it didn't look like a photograph. And why does it have to look like one?

Again, we are back to self-love, as we can become our worst critics. And unfortunately, many believe that, that is desirable or the only way to progress and push ourselves. That simply contracts energy and inhibits creativity.

So be the artist that you always have been, everyday and in everything. You can close your eyes at night smiling and celebrating what a creative day you've just had; and feel good about yourself.