The answer is easy, a resounding no.
Absolutely all creatives and ideators have learned and have been inspired by someone else creating something new, but not original. Have you thought about it before? In this blog I will teach you how to be a potential creative and how to free yourself from the burden of looking for originality or trying to do things from scratch, assuming once and for all your influences instead of running away from them.
Before I start, I would like to clarify that the theft of this blog idea is thanks to the book “Steal like an artist” by Austin Kleon.
Let’s start with the obvious
A very simple way to understand the concept that nothing is original is genetics: Mom + Dad = You, a sum of their genes and those of all your ancestors.
But fortunately we are not only made up of genes, we are also formed as people when we acquire musical tastes, aspirations, choose teachers, work, way of life, etc… We become unique and unrepeatable beings, a work of art; However, despite that, we will always continue to have a bit of our parents, grandparents, teachers, favorite artists, etc. Do you understand the point?
See something worth stealing? Take it
Here begins the art of building yourself as a creative.
We already accept the idea that nothing is original in the sense of the word that ideas are born out of nothing. Now you are going to learn to steal like an artist. Take EVERYTHING you like, phrases from a stranger’s conversation, a text from a book, verses from a song, everything that inspires you and makes you feel identified. Do you need inspiration? Check your robbery trunk and get inspired, don’t limit yourself but be careful! Creativity is not only what we use, it is also what we decide NOT to use. Steal only the things that speak to your soul and then your work will be authentic.
Don’t wait to find out who you are to take action!
You limit your growth if you wait to be a finished product.
The best way to expand is by putting yourself in circumstances that force you to act, to make decisions, to think about what you like, what doesn’t, what bothers you, what inspires you, what circumstance makes your imagination fly. Along the way while you figure out who you are Pretend to be who you want to be, until you make it! Dress for your dream job, not the one you currently have, act, speak, express yourself, travel the places your ideal self will visit. Imitate your heroes but don’t just copy their way of being and stick with it. No! Understand why they do things, where their essence comes from, what their inspiration is and thus you will be able to emulate your hero, that is, do the same as him but better.
Transform yourself, mix, study and be inspired by many people. Taking inspiration from one person is plagiarism, taking inspiration from many is “originality”.
Do you want to be a true creative? Write the book you want to read
Dare to draw the art you dream of seeing in the museum, write the movie you want to enjoy, do things the way you would do them, not others and not for fame or recognition, but for the fact of daring to capture what you really want to see. This is where the fiction movies that we enjoy so much are born, because to create art we do not start to think if that can really happen in real life or not, we let ourselves flow with thousands of emotions that flood our bodies, creating an experience worth remembering. . This means, in case you haven’t understood, that nothing that comes from what we have been taught in school, from the rules, parameters and ways in which we SHOULD act, is really attractive.
Write about what you know, create stories where nothing really interesting happens.
Use your hands! Please don’t become the slave person to the computer
It is true that the computer speeds up, provides speed and whatever you want, but nobody is creative by moving a mouse and pressing a keyboard, imagination is born from moving the body. If we start playing with post-it notes, kneading plasticine, writing on the wall, we turn on a light bulb in our brain and we start to think.
The work that only arises from the mind is not so good.
Practice productive procrastination
Can you believe that avoiding work is the best way to concentrate? Give yourself the time to lose yourself, to get bored, to wash the dishes, to take your brain for a walk and please, have a hobby! Do not waste anything of yourself and dare to BE, unwrap in your passions and allow yourself to create new neural connections, this will definitely create much more creative ideas than those of the sedentary in front of the computer.
And just like that, yes or if you become a potential creative when you dare to do what you had not done before.
