May 2019 – Tool of the Month – What Is the Most Creative Thing?

May’s Tool-of-the-Month centers on the short question, “What is the most creative thing I can do?”, which is not easy to actually ask. Or if it’s easy to ask, it’s hard to act on. So, here are some brief thoughts about that question, and since experimentation is a big part of creativity, give the question a shot and see what happens.

What Is the Most Creative Thing?

This month’s tool is a very simple one, a single uncomplex question:

What right now is the most creative thing I can do?

But, as the Lord of the Ring’s Gollum would have said, it’s a tricksy question. It’s easy to ask, and often difficult to answer, and more difficult to follow that answer. Many of us, particularly in the normalized manic pace of the Bay Area, are not used to asking this, having accepted (or resigned) to the overly-scheduled and programmed lives we live. Creativity doesn’t seem to factor into it.

But creativity is not merely the formalized kinds, the paint splashing and clay throwing, but is an attitude we deploy towards whatever we are engaged in. It is a stance of openness and engagement and play. A “creative solution” to a work problem does not look like a game or an art project, but nonetheless holds those qualities of creativity.

For example, I was commuting the other day, and was wanting to listen to a podcast, but kept meeting all the options with an internal “meh”. So, I remembered to ask this question, and what popped out happened to be an art podcast which I’d totally forgotten was in my library until this question jostled the memory forward. I knew this was the right way to go because it had the feel of rightness.

That’s all pretty simple to state, but the tricksy part is severalfold. For one, we have to have a feeling for what creativity is, i.e., for that state of openness-engagement-play, and for when that sense of rightness comes. That might itself take some effort to identify and feel into. Then there’s remembering to ask the question, when we are immersed in a conventional “doing” mode. That also might take some effort (maybe for a time, having your phone remind you periodically and randomly to ask the question). After that, if you get an answer, then the challenge is to actually accept it and do what your creative self is telling you, and not brushing it off or rejecting it. That’s a discipline in itself.

So, this tool is both a way to clarify information in the moment, and identify ways of engaging the present in a more alive and creative way, as well as sitting atop a broader set of practices. Since depression and anxiety so much rely on an “un-creative” stance, in which the world is seen as denuded of opportunity, or too threatening to act on those opportunities, then this tool and practice offers one kind of antidote to those wild moods. Certainly there can be the “depressed artist”, but no single tool is strong enough to, by itself, conquer these moods. But, since experimentation is such the opposite mode from depression and anxiety, even to take on this tool in that spirit is to challenge these moods.

Give it a shot, and right now, ask yourself: “After reading this piece, what’s the most creative thing I can do?” Then, try to do it.