Speech (5-7 min)
During fifteenth century AD about 550 million people
were living in this world. Almost 550 years later, in 2008 we still are very
familiar with a person who lived during that period and we horripilate on
seeing his paintings- the name Leonardo da Vinci. Why? Creativity distinguished
him from the rest. Fellow toastmasters and guests, I address you on a unique
human ability that can help us endure over and beyond our lifetime— the ability
called Creativity.
All creations do not involve creativity. For
instance a man digging to create a hole; there is no creativity involved in
that. Such mundane tasks do not call the creativity in us into action though
they result in creations. Creativity requires thought process. Not all thinking
is necessarily creative. If you are trying to solve a mathematical equation
like finding the hypotenuse of a triangle you are not involved in creativity. Such
thinking is called convergent thinking. Thinking which lead to a sought after
solution is referred by this name- that it converges into a solution. These are
more methodical. The other form of thinking is divergent thinking-famously
called out of the box thinking or as Edward de Bono called it - lateral thinking.
Not all divergent thinking is creative thinking. Bored of all the regular colours,
when I want to paint my house say I decide to create a new colour by mixing 17%
blue 23% red and 60% of green and obtained a new beautiful colour. This is
divergent thinking in the sense that we are thinking something other than the
normal– but there is no creativity involved. We have just mixed existing things
randomly. So when can we say that creativity is involved in thinking?
Creativity blossoms only when the creation of elemental ideas happen .Like
creating a new primary colour apart from blue ,green and red—something very
elemental is created. Of course this creation has to be original to be said as
an act of creativity.
Like the seed is separated from the chaff we have
now separated creativity from rest of the skills. Not that rest of the skills
are inferior. But creativity is the mother of all skills. Mother is a mother
because she delivers a baby and not just because she bore a baby. Similarly, though
creativity is a mental process, creativity is acknowledged as creativity only
when it is rendered to the rest of the population. Like the wrap of the chocolate
entices people to buy it, the way creativity is rendered make people appreciate
it. So the way you present your idea, the way you sing the tune you composed,
the way you paint in the canvas the mental image you conceived are all
important. These modes of output like singing, drawing, speaking, to name a few,
requires practice. Apart from refining the modes of output one needs to supply
the information that can aid mental processing. Quite a good
reading/seeing/hearing is required for this. But the most crucial step is the
processing stage as this is the step where we take the essence of input and
give it as output. To aid the processing, i.e. thinking, learn to be happy in solitude,
and then engage in solitary dialogue. Because in group people seldom think not
to mention the case while that group is chattering.
It is neither face nor physique that makes a person
unique-- yeah you guessed it right, it is his creativity. Though the creative
ability is innate in all human beings, the creativity that could be derived out
of that common creative ability makes us unique in this world- that makes the
existence of our individual self, irreplaceable in this world. The world needs
you to be creative. Have you experienced the joyous situation of becoming
parents? Well, err, I haven’t but I have witnessed the beaming faces of the
parents in the maternity ward. So if this, creation without creativity can
create such huge happiness, you can imagine the happiness creation with
creativity can bring you; you might have already experienced. So not that the
world alone needs you to be creative you too want yourself to be creative for
being happy. Over to you toastmaster.
(Project 3 of CC)
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