• Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties: Gail Sheehy
• Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun: Mary Lou Cook
• Creativity (or “creativeness”) is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

And here is how i define creativity: ‘Creativity is the ability to think of something for the first time’. How do you define creativity?

Here are my favourite quotes on creativity. Please share your favourites in the comments section below.

There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Thomas Disch

Creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist.

Albert Einstein

Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.

Pablo Picasso

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Jean Piaget

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – men who are creative, inventive and discoverers

Jean Caldwell

The only truly happy people are children and the creative minority.

George Bernard Shaw

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Ursula K. LeGuin

The creative adult is the child who has survived.

Rita Mae Brown

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.

John W. Gardner

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.

Mary-Claire King

There are two keys to being creatively productive. One is not being daunted by one’s fear of failure. the second is sheer perseverance.

Abe Tannenbaum

The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn’t need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas.

Linus Pauling

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Victor Hugo

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

They are the first rain after scorching heat, the thick blanket in a piercing cold, the flower in a desert, the blissful morning after a dark night, and….mmmm..aah..yes.. the plaster on a broken bone.

But we hate to bestow them with such metaphors when we face their merciless birthday bumps, their furiously beaming faces when they eagerly wait for us to cut the cake so that they wantonly massage it on our face without even caring for our sensitive sense organs. Or, their grinning faces when they succeed in pulling our legs at formal places. Gosh…. they take the cake in mischief department.

But we want to shower them with such metaphors when they lend their shoulders to us to cry on; when they jump with joy in our happiness; when they hold our hand while crossing the busy road; when they strive to make us smile when we’re feeling blue and when they assure us that they are always there….

These are the ingredients that make a delicious dish called friendship. We take bites after bites and feel how different each morsel tastes. Different people have different habits but it is when they come into close proximity to us, do we realize how similar they are, yet so unique in their own way.

The problem arises when we expect to see a reflection of ourselves in them.

But when we accept them for what they are, we find that they are better than our expectations. And then, starts the joyous, soul-bonding journey of friendship. So go ahead and take a joy ride with your friends.

Subhadradi too was one of Mamai’s closest friends but in a very different way. She had been Mamai’s maid for as long as I can remember. They shared an unspoken understanding that develops between an employee and her employer after many years of faithful service. I also suspect old age, widowhood and the wounds of life had brought them even closer.

I can’t remember Subhadradi actually ever working at our place. Yes, she would at times make Mamai’s bed, prepare a paan and even occasionally fold her clothes but she never scrubbed, cleaned or cooked like the other maids in the house. However, what she did most of the time was blabber this preposterous story of being an aristocratic lady who had never even poured herself a glass of water till the 1947 Partition reduced her to destitution.

Of course, even at a very young age I had heard horror tales of the Partition and the subsequent bloody mayhem on both sides of the border, including those involving the extended family. However, never had I or anyone else around heard a story of such deprivation and it sounded extremely implausible.

Moreover, I had at times seen Subhadradi do dishes at a neighbor’s and my young mind couldn’t envisage that frail woman in the tattered sari on her haunches scrubbing hard at another family’s dirty dishes as an elegant wealthy lady. People used to incessantly taunt her and call her names. In fact, I had even caught Ma in a foul mood snap at Subhadradi and call her a liar.

One afternoon, a month or so after my sixth birthday, I returned from school to find Ma decked in fancy silk and the aroma of the special three layered pudding – the signs of a guest for lunch. I was told that Princess was coming for lunch. As I could make out from Mamai and Ma’s conversation, this was extremely uncharacteristic of Princess – she never paid anyone a visit before late afternoon. To add to Mamai’s tensions, a visibly uncomfortable Subhadradi declared she was going home early on grounds of feeling unwell. Ma rightly pointed out that she’d feel even worse in her dingy shanty home and it would be better if she slept it off at our house.

I was still working at the pudding, when Mamai called for Subhadradi. It had so happened that Mamai had been raving about Subhadradi’s special paan to Princess for a while. Surprisingly, in all the years that Subhadradi worked for Mamai, Princess had never met her. But then Princess always visited in the late afternoon long after Subhadradi had left. Subhadradi came in with her head uncharacteristically buried in her chest. Suddenly, Princess stood up, walked to Subhadradi and embraced her in the regal way that society ladies did at that time and they exchanged pleasantries. The day then continued as usual; Subhadradi returned with the neatly folded paans. No questions were asked, no explanations given. Ever since then, no one in the household ever heard Subhadradi’s blabber again.

Even a six year old had understood that Princess, with dignity and grace had just corroborated Subhadradi’s story.

I learnt two significant lessons of life that afternoon. Firstly, to lend a patient ear to and trust even the most outlandish stories as a person already savaged by the cruelties of life might just need that to carry on. Secondly, to respect a person’s dignity by refraining from all embarrassing questions. Every day when I read about or watch educated men and women air their dirty linen in public, I remember that afternoon spent in the company of three women of another time and the power of words that remained unspoken.

The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. – Sigmund Freud

I can visualize the day and situation. Here is somebody confronted by a bigger and better armed hunter and the lesser guy who has had to hone-up on his intellectual skills to survive is in a no-win situation. So he gets this brainwave and hurls an insult and most perhaps runs for his life. The first intellectual salvo has been hurled and the next step in the evolution of man taken place. 

What a beautiful way to put it. I must grant Freud the accolade of being a seer. But I wish he was here today and he would have seen how his observation has gone a step further. 

As civilization kept on maturing and the intellect kept on growing, refinements were added. There were small kingdoms and then bigger kingdoms and then huge unwieldy empires. People had to be educated and pioneers were afoot. The control slowly slipped from the few to the many. But the many, specially the intelligent ones were busy making money or running productive lives so they chose the never-do-well ones to become leaders and called this choosing democracy. These in turn came together and met in a body they called the Parliament or Congress and they in turn chose the most incompetent and most easily influenced type as their President or Prime Minister. Things were going well but then these leaders began to think too much of themselves and their stupid decisions began hurting the very people who had put them there. 

Civilization had reached a point of no return and hurling insults was not working. You could see the centuries of refining of social norms spiraling out of control. You can judge this by examining some of the trends. See how music from calm, elevating experience has changed form slowly from polka to symphony to jazz, from quadrille to waltz to rock-n-roll and the wild zanghy music and let-me-be of today’s wild gyrations. You can see it in the transformation of languages. The courtesy and kindness shown in interactions has now been replaced by grunts and heartless SMSs which take much too long to decipher and leaves the recipient confused. 

See the art side. The subtlety of Reuben and Renoir went the Picasso way and now even monkeys and elephants are featured as artists. 

And lastly to make my point even clearer, we have had to use coarser and louder methods to be seen and heard. Words do not create any effect on the thick skinned leaders who have first created so much displeasure that people have risen in arms and then to protect themselves these leaders have now surrounded themselves with more arms and they keep on developing more sophisticated arms instead of listening. 

Is it a wonder then that hurling solid objects is back in vogue and we are seeing this phenomenon catching on?

Civilization is not fully dead; now they are throwing shoes! 

Civilization has gone full circle and mentality-wise we are back in the Stone Age although wearing footwear and T shirts. Perhaps to differentiate between now and then, we should call it the Shoes Age.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller.

This is definitely something being said by a philosopher. And philosophers are known to be living in the clouds, rarely in touch with reality. The only one who understand their uttering are other philosophers. From where I stand I see nothing of adventure. It is more like a drudgery that never seems to end. What we had imagined and what life has finally become!

Truth is I agree with this saying but I can’t for the life of me see most people having any inkling of what is being described in it.

For example, the owner of the grocery shop where I shop; he has to stand twelve hours a day, routinely look after clients with no respite day-in-day-out. He goes home to sleep and to listen to his wife’s complaints or demands which are mostly connected with children, household problems, relatives and in-laws; although justified he cannot do much about them as both time and energy are at a premium.

In another instance take my maid. Not enough income, large family as she cannot stop her husband from enjoying her. Then brooming and washing dishes since the time she was 14 and now she is 60+.

Is this adventure or a sick joke?

Who wants adventure? Life is taken as it was offered. No attempt to change or “think” other wise was ever even hinted by their souls. The learning process and excitement went out of their character long ago. Are you prepared to share their burden? If not, they are not interested in anything and definitely not any philosophy!

Expect much from yourself and little from others and you will avoid incurring resentments. – Confucius.

And thereby deprive us of all meaning to live? Confucius may have been a great and wise man and I know a major portion of humanity lives by what he says but just imagine life without complaints, without anyone to blame and without scapegoats to carry the load. I mean where would be the spice in living so kindly? And truth be told, what about the negative attitudes of those around us, how do we ignore that? Seems something like an illusion.

And this business of expecting much from myself is really mind numbing. Am I not a grand guy already? Why are you being so critical? I must say, I resent his attitude of yours. All I ask from others is a little respect of my space which is my right and some appreciation of all I do. Do you not see any virtue in my person? 

Doing nothing is better than Being Busy Doing Nothing. – Lao Tzu

This sounds simple. Have you ever tried to do nothing? You will be surprised how difficult it is to do nothing. It requires letting go of the feeling that if you don’t do it things will not get done.

Then who will make my breakfast you would ask and who will broom the place? You are right; these things do need to be done but let us look at the world at large.

This saying is for agitated people who cannot sit still and who have overactive minds. They have to be up and doing even there is nothing to be done. These people are a pain in the neck because in the name of assisting they interfere and upset the equilibrium all over the place. Asking them to sit still tantamount to punishing them and asking to keep out and away, will make them jump to conclusions and even more agitations.

Doing nothing requires to let the world run itself, enjoy the moment, bask in aloneness and savor silence. It is another matter that this repose is also therapeutic both for the body and spirit.

The Most Common Way People give up their Power is by Thinking that They Don’t Have Any. – Alice Walker

We talk and discuss how the world is tearing apart and everything we valued is breaking up. And as a footnote we never forget to add –“but then what can we do?” When we notice a mistake, an injustice happening, something out of place, do we do something or give ourselves the excuse of squarely blaming the authority like the Municipality, Police and the Government?

If there is a stone in the middle of the road, how many of you would stop to remove it? By not acting and using the power of the individual as a person you are simply forgoing it.  Then you are also giving the right to others to do as they will and your own right to raise objections are cancelled.

Believe Nothing, No Matter where you read it or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason, experience and common sense. – attributed to Buddha.

This definitely the path of right action but if you observe with intent, you will clearly see umpteen examples of it never being practiced. The confidence and panache with which people will talk things they have no idea about is a phenomenon about humans which never ceases to surprise me. If you ask them how and where they learnt about and on what authority they base their claims, the chances are that you will get the reply “They say….”  The truth is that we say, think and act in synch to suit our needs of the moment and everything we do is a back-up to justify our desires of the moment. We behave not by reason but by what is convenient at any given moment and often we change, deny and even lie about things as it suits us. As we shall never admit or agree to it there is not much point in pursuing the subject.