Our Environment and Our Creative Voice

        Every day, every moment, our brains our processing massive amount of data and deciding what to do with that data. We, as members of a society, send out information to each other in any creative form we have available to us. Every card we send, or movie we recommend, or carefully crafted text is a creative form of sending information to one another. We enjoy receiving new interesting ideas from others, as well as seeing others enjoy what we give them. This supports us sharing creatively among ourselves every moment.  But is this really effective? Does it really support creativity, or just doing what we expect others want to see?

There is so much we don’t tell each other, so much we carry with us that we don’t think anyone should know. This leads to blind spots in knowledge. We keep information to ourselves to play it safe. Sometimes it’s to avoid an argument, or to save someone’s feelings, or just to save ourselves expected embarrassment. Our environment supports this, especially on college campuses. In so few classes can we vary far from the guidelines. We are allowed to, no one is telling us we’ll fail or that certain new ideas will be met with harsh criticism. We just get the feeling. The feeling that it isn’t worth the risk. Why would we put forth someone new, something against the grain, when the alternatives are tried and true? If we vary to much from the mean, we know we’ll stick out. We see others that stick out, most of us can’t even imagine being like them. We would hate to expose ourselves like them, leave ourselves bare, be judged by others as we have judged. We would much rather watch what succeeds and attempt our best emulation.

This is where the problem originates. We all just emulate what is right, what we see our environment accept. This leaves us all with the same voice, the one we use to play it safe. This is hardly the creative voice we want from others. Yet by not truly letting others know they’ll be accepted, that ideas beyond convention can be added to the conversation, we practically forbid it. When we learn a craft, much of that learning is simply to focus our voice, make it digestible for others. This takes out our true voice, and the rest of our learning is to make is successful. We learn how to make it seem new and creative.  We add to the problem. It’s the same logic that keeps Dictators in power. Not that any one person is in charge or commanding us, but it is the environment we create for ourselves that dictates us. A Dictator rules through power and fear. But where does that power and fear lie? In those who work under them, also held by power and fear. If everyone together tried to over through the Dictator, he would be powerless, he is just a man. It is too with this fear. It is nothing, we create it, but it rules over us. The only solution to this problem is revolution. Every voice saying what they truly think. Only then can we have true creativity.

It isn’t our fault. As humans, our basic instincts say to follow the pack, be safe, agree with those in charge. It isn’t our bias or upbringing, but our own adaptations that have sentences us to live with this fear. This isn’t a fear of failure, or of others, but of ourselves, and what we truly think.