I think one of the fundamental ways in which the modern state education system handicaps the youth is by espousing only the arts and technology subjects/trades with the term ‘creation’.
For example; if an engineering student puts together a working circuit board of some kind; or if an art student makes a sculpture; or if a catering student bakes a cake, then they are said to have created that particular thing.
Whereas, when a student solves a mathematical equation they’re said to have figured it out or understood the principle which they are learning. And although that might be true, they are ignoring that the student created a solution to the problem they were dealing with. Of course, the methodology for solving the equation wasn’t created by that student, however the methodology for baking or sculpting or soldering wasn’t created by the students in the former paragraph.
The tech student had to solder the PCBs to the electrical component neatly, the art student had to sculpt properly for the structure to hold and with enough skill to make it achieve the aesthetic they were aiming for, and the catering student had to use the correct amount of ingredients in comparison to other ingredients at the correct temperature to make the cake rise and later taste a particular way. (At this point, it will be noted that I know hardly anything about these forms of creation and I apologise for the analogies but I trust it helps to communicate the gist.)
Creativity is not limited to any given subject and is actually just us exercising our capacity for finding solutions to our problems and applying them successfully.
A sculpture (or any other piece of art) is a solution to our problem of having to convey message and meaning about our objective reality through a product or solution espoused by the sculpture. The circuit board is used in manufacturing of household appliances, from the £5 sandwich toaster I got from Asda, to my laptop (which is my favourite product I own, if you’re interested :D). Cake is obviously a solution to hunger and to nutritional goodness of carbs and fat.
The solving of mathematical equations has, since the birth of cryptocurrencies, been able to solve the problem of exchanging large amounts of wealth in online transfers.
Basically, what I mean to say is that we are all creators and that we’re just better at creating different stuff to others and at different levels of quality or quantity. And you can get better at creating by practicing creating more often. I don’t create enough of my own original blog posts, so this is a start and I hope create a habit of creating.
This is what I was thinking when listening to a youtube video featuring Jeffrey Tucker and Stefan Molyneux – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv7gu_kh_Ko
The definition of creation I’m using is: The action or process of bringing something into existence (cheers Google) That is what I think creating is, whether it exists as an concept in your head or physically.