1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Imagine if you were able to discern every sound that your ear can hear, continually bombarding you with information. We would have nothing to focus on. We would go insane. Our brains actually choose those sounds it thinks are the most important and shuts off what is “white noise”. In many ways our creative focus works the same way. We are continually seeking the next big thing or movement that is going to shake the world. We tire of what we have seen. Visual and aural stimulation becomes something common and our minds search for a new rush or creative high. We forget that our fresh idea is simply a reworking of something old, something common.

Take for example the things that we think of as creative.

Writing- When you break it down, all of our writing in English, (and in many other non-eastern languages) just rearranges 26 letters. The works of great authors, poets and orators, whose creations can fill vast volumes of books come from only 26 little shapes.

Art- The wonderful masterpieces of Renaissance art. The depth of detail in a Pixar movie. The colors that we see and bring such variety and vitality to our lives are only mixtures of 3 simple colors.

Music – Music is a language that can transcend culture, transform our lives and capture the spirit of a generation. But when you think about it and figure out how to get past all the majors and minors and diminished and suspended you find 12 notes.

These are important ideas to understand when thinking about the way the world looks at and approaches art. Especially Art with a capitol A. Art and creativity is not something that is so huge and vast that it is beyond the understanding of “normal” people. We just need to view it through a different lens. This is not to try and diminish the impact that art can have on people and the importance that it plays in our lives, you just need to see that creativity can live inside of you.