Creativity in Context: “Unweaving the Rainbow”

You want to know my biggest fear? It’s not clowns, as scary as those things are. It’s not needles, which are a legit phobia of mine (As I currently have two needles in my hand, I only can thank god for this cast which covers them up). In reality, my biggest fear is if one day, after some sort of accident, I would wake up in some white, sterile hospital room, and I would discover I could not think creatively anymore.

    In all reality, I wouldn’t even realize I couldn’t think creatively, due to the fact that if I were truly rendered unable to think I would probably be a vegetable or dead. But I fear this so much, because ideas and thoughts are what make up the human mind. Since we were children, countless influences and reality began to create our foundations of thinking, brick by brick. Ideas are then contained by language, visual or written, and then stocked up into what Sherlock Holmes calls our “attic”, an immense, yet limited space, where our views of the world are stored. I know I’m being purely metaphorical here, but it’s true. Memories hold the keys to the many doors we will find ourselves wishing to open, or perhaps close. Our entire lives are held by our brain. Without a brain… I fear the result.

    Ideas also translate to creativity, and in turn, as personalities differ between human beings, so do the results. I surely would not be one to create the next Iphone, as much as I wish I could be a multi-millionaire. I simply do not carry the tools to create such a tool. First, I would need to have schooling in mechanical subjects, aps, and how to create them. I’d somehow have to be able to understand the Computer Science mumbo jumbo my brother and other people can so easily spew out, and disallow the fog of the mind to carry my mind to la-la-land while my friends discuss math I never attempted to understand. I understand math, and it was one of my better subjects in high school, but that does not give me any qualifications in the subject. First, if one wants to attempt such things, they have to have an understanding of the base-work of what they’re trying to achieve. Some people can make an I-Phone. Some can write the next ground-breaking novel. Some people will create things beyond our own imagination now. But here’s the thing: It all came from IDEAS.

    Simple ‘A-HA’s’, or a lighting up of the brain is not all there is though. True creativity does indeed come from an idea, but to create a rainbow, you need more than just the sky to harbor its light. You need slight rainfall, and the refraction of light in the sun. Taking that out of metaphor, it means that ideas do not flourish alone. First, ideas must be revised and second, placed in the right circumstances.

    But how to make brilliant ideas? Well, I’m sorry to say, but most ideas are more likely to appear when one is in a relaxed state. Basically meaning you get ideas when you’re not trying to have them. Annoying, right? But that’s why, for us writers; we usually carry around a notebook wherever we go, as a sort of dream-catcher for the mind. That’s actually something that I would subscribe to anyone, if they want to catch the toe of their creative muse.

    Remember, ideas are things that are purely yours… but as beings that have grown up in similar cultures, with similar influences, you shouldn’t be surprised if your ideas are not always original. That’s why I take this quote to heart: “To have a great idea, have many ideas.”

    Good luck in your bouts of Creativity!

    See you next week.

    A.C. Rooks


6 thoughts on “Creativity in Context: “Unweaving the Rainbow”

  1. So true about carrying notebooks around everywhere. They’re so useful.

    I also would like to suggest a book: “We”, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One of the major plot points is the ability to remove imagination from a person.

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