“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while” — Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers
This quote about creativity resonated with me the most because I have experienced some of the feelings Jobs describes. Jobs essentially says that a person who is creative will demonstrate their creativity by connecting some sort of web that already exists in his or her head, and that they might feel confused because, to them, they didn’t do anything but simply connect the dots. He focuses on how creativity may seem so natural to one person and then seem impressive and complex to another.
I would argue that this way of thinking about creative is pretty symmetric with how I think about and experience creativity. Although some people may be more creative than others, I believe everyone has the potential to become more creative because they already have ideas in their head, but they just need to practice connecting those ideas to channel their creativity. Often, I have experienced a multitude of ideas or thoughts relevant to a topic, but I don’t know how they are related. Once I find the connections between my ideas and thoughts, I experience a mental spark. Suddenly, everything makes sense and I no longer think—I just do.
Creativity is probably most apparent in my life when I write, argue, and design. Often, I am writing op-eds or blog posts to defend a stance on an issue in the student government take or provide information that interrelated and not always easy for any non-student government junkies to understand. My creativity isn’t just channeled through my arguments in my writing, but also through my oral arguments. Whether it’s in a committee meeting with mostly faculty members or on the floor of the student senate, I sometimes just experience the spark where I am able to communicate a creative argument that usually uses an alternative perspective. Lastly, I think my creativity also appears when I attempt to design advertisements, resumes, job applications, etc. Although I am not a skilled graphic artist, I have some beginner experience and am able to generate appealing graphics. However, I cannot figure out how to fix the color scheme on my blog (because it’s not very visually appealing), so bear with me on this one!
Eyes of the Hillini 