“It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the very essence of life” said Barthold Georg Niebuhr. Creativity is indeed the greatest gift to humanity. A man is different from all animals only because of his creativity. Even among men, it is creativity that distinguishes a leader from a follower, an entrepreneur from his employee, a writer from his reader, and a great from the ordinary.

We are all creative as we are constantly changing physically, mentally and emotionally. A person is never in the same state of mind at any two moments. His thoughts travel faster than the speed of light. You may be happy one moment but depressed the next. You can love one person at a time and hate the same person after a while. You can love your country once and hate it only a few days later.

The creation of a person is not different from the person himself. There is a great correlation between the mental state of a person and the creations of it. A happy person can create a happy creation, while an unhappy person can only create a painful creation.

Although all creations are unique, people do not value them equally. It is important that another person also identifies with creative art. Anyone can create music or write a song. However, unless these arts touch the souls of a large number of other people, the creation is worthless.

There it is important to understand that the true art of creativity lies in developing a connection with the souls of other people and the soul of the world. Only that person can make a great creation whose soul is connected with other souls. The greatest writers, poets, and leaders become useless once this cord is broken. This is the hallmark of a creative person. A creative person can only last if he stands on a solid foundation. The following are the seven pillars of creativity.

Simplicity

A creative person is a simple person. He knows the importance of simplicity since only from simple living does lofty thinking originate. He knows that he can understand something only when he “stands up”, which means that he considers himself a humble student and considers everything else as a teacher. A student can only learn from one person or even one thing. A creative person learns not only from the wise but also from the foolish. He learns from nature, plants and animals. Arrogance is therefore the greatest enemy of creativity.

Reading

A creative person always learns from others. His learning includes not only living beings with whom he can interact and discuss but also those who are no longer in this world. However, his knowledge is stored in the books. Thus, reading books, a creative person understands the thoughts of great men. He knows that every great creation is built from another creation, just as every human being is created from other human beings (his parents). Therefore, he is a voracious reader who learns a lot from others.

Thought

We all see thousands of events taking place every day before our eyes. We never bother to learn from them. We never think about why things happen in a particular way and not in another way. Millions of people had seen an apple fall, but only Newton thought why an apple falls to the ground. This made all the difference. A thinking man observes and thinks about everything around him and tries to learn from the events of everyday life.

Reasoning

While ordinary people take things for granted and attribute everything to God or some unknown reason, a creative person always reasons. It does not consider any final explanation or any affirmation as evangelical truth. Try to challenge each explanation and try to find a better explanation. Einstein said, “Newton, forgive me.” since his theories superseded Newtonian physics.

interacting

True knowledge emerges only through the interaction of the mind. A person sitting in isolation cannot hold his mind like a worm, just as a piece of wood cannot retain its heat if it is separated from other burning pieces of wood. You have to interact with human minds to spark and test your creativity. After all, they are the people you are creating for. If your creation doesn’t touch them, it’s just useless.

experiencing

Every creative person knows the pain of failure. Even a genius cannot always create excellence. Even Einstein failed several times. Therefore, a creative person continues to experiment with new ideas and thoughts. He knows that even failures teach man many things as Prof. wisely says later,

“Every experiment proves something. If it doesn’t prove what you wanted it to prove, try something else.”

The story goes that “Thomas Edison failed more than 1000 times before creating the electric light bulb. When asked, he replied:

“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully discovered 10,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb.”

caring

A creative person loves the world and people. It is only out of love for this world that he creates things that are desired by society and people. Love gives you the motivation to create and meet people. A person full of hate can only destroy things but can never create anything.

creativity is divine

People often become arrogant when they begin to enjoy the fruits of creativity. They mistakenly believe that they can always create great things at will. This arrogance soon kills their creativity as they distance themselves from humanity. You are no longer in a position to feel your thoughts and love them. It is important to remember that creation happens by itself and no person can plan it.
They are like children who have come through you but not from you. In the words of Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And although they are with you, they do not belong to you.

This is true for every creation.