Being creative & Wabi-Sabi

Everyone is creative. It is in the origin of a human being. Some of us a bit more some of us a bit less. Creativity is not just about art or handmade. It is about music, business, daily situations and life itself. You just sometimes have such difficult tasks that you are feeling like in a tunnel and just don’t have strength for anything creative. You can let the creativity out in different ways. There are exercises to train the brain. There are techniques to concentrate or just to let go. But the main advice is ‘Just try’. Not trying is a barrier that keeps a lot of people from being creative. Especially when you get a mind wall or a verbal wall – ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I am not talented enough’, ‘You can’t do this’, ‘Nobody does it this way’, ‘There is already something similar’. All these kind of phrases demotivate a person to even try. Of course creating a wheel or a thousandth version of the exactly same app is not directly ‘being creative’, but still people try. Trying out is what you need to keep your creativity running. Through iteration and modification you can process new ideas or redesign old ones. Think about a situation, product or service. What could you do better? How can you change something? Is it possible to create it cheaper/better/less harmful/more environmental friendly? Or just try to express your feelings about something – maybe a film you like, some clouds in the sky or a song. Let your inner world and the world around you give you input and you can answer through your creativity. Just try. Be happy with the result without thinking about its quality. If it’s great – it’s good; if it’s not – it is good too. Being creative is not about that. Think about it just as a process and gaining experience.

Imperfect, simple and perishable.

This is also how you can explain Wabi-Sabi in 3 adjectives. This is a profound Japanese life philosophy that stands for minimalistic principles, thinking about nature and the universe, necessity and imperfection, forms of solitude and intuition to enrich ones inner and outer world.
The beauty of transience. The imperfection. Simple contentment. Get rid of the unnecessary but leave some fun. Clean but not too much. Done but not perfect. Current society is consuming to much resources that leads to unbearable amount of unused products that are piling up to garbage hills, overdrawn bank accounts and overfilled apartments that in consequence harms the humans and environment. Feel the moment. Experience the time. Stop for a moment. Close your eyes and think about all the things you have that you can actually live without. Enjoy your life as it is, not craving for more. New things are new till the first use. Beauty is not ‘new’ but ‘good’. Not craving for more excitement but thinking of the moments it happened and feel that happiness again. Everything changes, nothing stays the same and everything comes someday to an end. We as humans need to accept the change and evolve together with the environment and nature. Live your life with your needs in mind not your wishes. Be human. Be humble. Be yourself.

Reading recommendations:
About Creativity:
About Wabi-Sabi:
  • ‘Wabi-Sabi: Beyond Minimalism, and into a Unique Mode of Mindful Simplicity’ by Mike Sturm, Jan. 2018 – more on medium.com
  • ‘Japanese Graphics’ page 31, by SendPoints (Publisher), 2016 – more on sendpoints.cn
Other recommendations:
About Creativity:
  • Ted Talks on Creativity, a huge list of excellent talks on different aspects of creativity – more on ted.com
Quote of the week:
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

― Maya Angelou

unsplash-logoPhoto by Mervyn Chan