“It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the true essence of life” said  Barthold Georg Niebuhr. Creatively is indeed the greatest gift to the mankind. A man is different from all animals only because of his creativity.  Even within men, it is the creativity that distinguishes a leader from 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 in any two moments. His thoughts travel faster than the speed of light. He may be happy in one moment yet depressed in just the next moment. He may love a person at one time and hate the same persona after sometime. He may love his country one time and detest it in only few days later.

The creation of a person is no different than the person himself. There is a great correlation between the mental state of a person and his creations. A happy person can make happy creation while an unhappy person can only create sorrowful creation.

While all creations are unique, these are not valued equally by the people. It is important that other person too identifies with the creative art. Everyone can create music or write a song. Yet unless these arts stir the soul of a large number of other people, the creation is of no value.

There it is important to understand the true art of creativity lies in developing connection with the souls of other people and the soul of the world. Only such person can make 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 last only if he stands on solid foundation. Followings are the seven pillars of creativity.

Simplicity

A creative person is a simple person. He knows the importance of simplicity as only from simple living, the high thinking originates. He knows that he can understand something only when he “stand-under” which means that he consider himself a humble student and consider everything else as a teacher. A student alone can learn from a person or even from a thing. A creative person learns not only from wise but also from fools. He learns from nature, plants and animals. Arrogance is therefore the biggest enemy of creativity. 

Reading

A creative person always learns from others. His learning includes not only the living beings with whom he can interact and argue but also those who are not more in this world. Yet their knowledge is stored in the books. Thus by reading books, a creative person understand the thoughts of great men. He knows that every great creation is build from another creation just like every human being is created from other human beings (his parents). Therefore, he is a voracious reader who learns a lot from others.

Thinking

We all see thousands of events taking place every day before our eyes. We never bother to learn from them. We never think why things are happening in a particular way and not happening in any other way? Millions of people had seen apple falling but it was only Newton who thought why an apple is falling on the ground. This made all the difference. A thinking man observes and thinks about everything around him and try to learn from the day to day events.

Reasoning

While ordinary people take the things for granted and ascribe everything to God or unknown reason, a creative person always reason. He does not consider any explanation final and any statement as Gospel truth. He tries to challenge every explanation and try to find a better explanation. Einstein said, “Newton, forgive me.” as his theories replaced Newtonian physics.

Interacting

The true knowledge emerges only by the interaction of mind. A person sitting in isolation cannot keep his mind worm just like a piece of wood cannot retain its heat if it is separated from the other pieces of woods which are burning. You have to interact with human minds to ignite and test your creativity. After all they are the people for whom you are creating. If your creation does not touch them, it is simply useless.

Experimenting

Every creative person knows the pain of failing. Even a genius cannot always create excellence. Even Einstein failed several times. Therefore a creative person keeps on experimenting with new ideas and thoughts. He knows that even failures teach a man many things as wisely said by Prof. Anon,

“Every experiment proves something. If it doesnt prove what you wanted it to prove, it proves something else.” 

The story goes that "Thomas Edison failed more than 1,000 times before he created electric bulb. When asked he, replied,

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

Loving

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

Creativity is Divine

Often people become arrogant when they start enjoying the fruits of creativity. They mistakenly believe that they can always create great things at their will. This arrogance soon finishes their creativity as they distance themselves from the humanity. They are no longer in a position to feel their thoughts and love them. It is important to remember that creation happens of their own and no person can ever plan them. They are just 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 Lifes longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

This is true for every creation.