Enamored with minimalistic soulless paintings, stood a house claiming to follow the newfound law of ‘simplicity.’ When in truth, that was the death of our creativity.
Our creativity is rapidly accelerating to an all-time low and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking is only one metric to prove it. In America, there has been a steady decrease in creativity ever since 1990. What coincidentally came out in 1990? The internet.
The internet’s primary intention in 1990 was to connect people. Yet, today we live in a more disconnected society than ever. Our creativity took a hit because of distractions and constantly depending on a system to solve our issues. We have been conditioned to think that creativity is bad.
But…what is creativity? Creativity does not refer to art, music and drama. Creativity is a fundamental skill needed for day-to-day life: including critical thinking, problem solving and thinking outside of the box. Do those skills sound familiar to you? Competitive job markets, CEOS and employers all search for these qualities in top candidates. Yet, we remain in a creative deficit.
Additionally, worldwide education systems have failed to recognize the importance of creativity, forcing all students to succumb to standardized testing and rote learning. Also, with the suppression of creativity comes obedience. Our internet is not to blame, we are the cause of this crisis. Children, the future of today, have been the sole victims; parading around with screens attached to their faces, absorbing ideas rather than making them. Constantly being told by superiors that their creativity will lead to a lack of success. In reality, we allowed creativity to die.
We need a change. Why? Because everything depends on creativity. Scientific discoveries only happened because someone thought out of the box. Monumental buildings were only built because we thought of a new way to build them. Lawyers, engineers and doctors all heavily rely on creativity. Yet their systems enforce a way of suppressing it. We all have creative potential. It is up to you to unlock it.
Boredom unleashes creativity. As Einstein said, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” People back then were forced to be creative. You had to go against the grain to succeed. Our future heavily relies on the changes we make moving forward.
That is, to be said, our screens are not the culprit to our creative crisis. If anything, it can be a tool if used correctly. To prevent turning into creative-less robots, feed your creativity once in a while, and see where it takes you. Because we are tomorrow’s future.
