Creativity and experience are synonymous
How challenging your world view and actively seeking out new experiences can positively impact your creative thinking.
As a general rule I try to avoid giving people advice. I’m even more cautious to offer advice around children or parenting. The only exception I will make is this: children can’t be what they can’t see.
It’s a simple, logical, but often overlooked reality that in order to become something, we must be able to conceive of it. My daughter can only one day become an artist if she can first see other people living out that vocation in practice. It follows then that we, as parents, have a responsibility to expose our children to as wide a variety of vocations, occupations, cultures, communities and experiences as is humanly possible.
What the hell does this have to do with the title of this article? Whether you’re a musician, a writer or a marketing strategist, the ability to generate original ideas is a critical skill set. And in the same way that children can only be what they can see, as adults our conceptions are limited by our experience.
This isn’t just my opinion. Countless studies from Bath University to Scientific American agree: openness to new experiences is consistently identified as the strongest predictor of creative achievement.
If we were to summarise the concept: the broader your experience, the wider your capacity of thought. Simple enough to memorise or print on a t-shirt. There are, however, a number of challenges presented by our modern, convenient lives in rising to meet this aspiration.
Cultivating lived experience
The first big problem? Most of us live very similar lives. Before you attack the premise of your life being the same as that one person you hate at work, I beg you: hear me out.
Without getting into the politics and socio-economic reasoning behind this, most peoples’ lives in the modern age are broadly a variation of the following: grow up in the suburbs, go to school/college/university, get a corporate job, and so on. Maybe add a little early-twenties waywardness in there for good measure (just me?). The smaller events in between may change, but the primary landmarks are consistent throughout societies and countries across the Western world.
Contrast this with the lives that our grandparents lived, and the difference is immediately apparent. Here’s a few pop culture examples for good measure.
Before American writer Ralph Ellison turned 25 he had - in no particular order - attempted to become a professional trumpet player, worked as a shoeshine boy, drugstore clerk, dentist’s assistant (at age 12 no less), janitor, baker, receptionist, sculptor’s assistant, and a laboratory assistant at a paint company.
Ernest Hemingway learned hunting and bushcraft skills as a toddler, graduating to working full-time on a farm by age 15. At age 16 he set out on a weeks-long solo backpacking trip, subsisting solely on the fish and animals he was able to catch himself. By age 18 he was serving as an ambulance driver in WW1, earning the Italian Silver Medal for Valor in the process.
Extreme examples? Maybe. But it helps to illustrate how homogenous twenty-first century life has become. Which leads us onto problem number two…
The culture of globalization
The next issue is culture. Ever heard of culture flattening? It’s a term originally coined by Kyle Chayka, to represent the process in which information, commodities and culture produced in one part of the world enter into a global village.
Where once a subculture, trend, or piece of media may have existed in regional infamy, today it exists on a global level, consumed by people of all nations. It’s something many outlets have dubbed ‘The Age of Cultural Stagnation’.
That new “must see” Netflix show you’re raving about? 100M other people watched it this week too.The new Tik Tok trend that your daughter is hooked on is currently trending in 85 countries. Same with the next trend coming down the line. To add insult to injury, most of us are living in an algorithmic bubble designed to reaffirm your world views rather than challenge or expand them. I don’t think I need to explain the impact all of this might have on the diversity of viewpoints, perspectives and opinions.
Sorry if that all sounds a little dystopian. While the internet remains the single greatest resource of information on the planet, our current modes of interaction often hinder rather than promote learning and growth.
Where next?
To be entirely clear I am not saying you need to close your social media accounts and delete Netflix from your smart TV. I’m also not advocating for a six-month vacation in some remote corner of the earth to reconnect with your inner child. I love a good cat video on Instagram and the comfort of my sofa as much as the next human being. I might have even watched Stranger Things too.
What I am advocating for, is being conscious of these things and trying to expand the variety of viewpoints that we consume. Guide your own discovery, don’t leave it in the hands of algorithms. It’s not about turning your life inside out either, it’s simply about being purposeful in the things that you consume.
In practical terms you could add one event to your month that broadens your life experience. Join a group in a community you normally don’t interact with, volunteer in an area you don’t regularly spend time in. Next time you pick up a book, grab something at random from a section you normally wouldn’t read. Solicit recommendations of books, music and movies from your workplace. Check out the ones that are the most alien to you.
Is it going to make you a polymath overnight? Hell no. But it will expand your perspective of the world and maybe even has a positive impact on your mental wellbeing along the way.
Being in a room where everyone is discussing your specialist subject is comfortable. I get it. It’s enjoyable even. Being in a room where you know nothing about the topic is where we learn and grow as people.
In order to deliver your best work - whether you’re a composer, writer, or PR strategist - you need to maximise the amount of experience, emotion and insight that you have to draw from. And moreover, make it as divergent as possible from your contemporaries.
Starting with the question “what am I consuming and what does it add?” is a good first step.
“In order to create something great, something that *clicks* with people, something that lasts – whether it be a movie, book, or indeed business – you need to find a way for it to form a relationship with the world around it. And this means you need to know a thing or two about the world; to be worldly”