Creativity

I have been baking a lot lately. There is something satisfying about taking a few simple ingredients, mixing them together, and placing them in the oven for a while to create something that you can eat. For example:

3.25 parts Flour + .04166 parts yeast + .04166 parts salt + 1.5 parts water + heat + time = 2 loafs bread.

Making a radio is just a little bit more difficult. But, all you need is some wire, a galena crystal, and a pair of headphones as follows:

And then, there is painting a picture. All you need is some paint, a canvas, and a paint brush.

Check out this video:

On the cosmic scale, all that was required to create the Universe was: 1) create all the matter that will ever exist, 2) compress that matter into a ball until it explodes, 3) create the laws of physics, and 4) use those laws to recombine the expanding matter into myriad galaxies, stars, solar systems, planets, moons, comets, and asteroids.

So what do each of these creative acts have in common? In each, the creator, 1) decides to create something, 2) assembles the elements of the creation, and 3) creates. Yet, something is missing. There must be more to it. Somehow, “something” is added to the soup of disorganized elements to make them into something more than the sum of the parts.

That missing “something” is creativity.

Some call it inspiration. Some call it enlightenment. Some call it “The Muse”. Some call it discovery.

Sir Isaac Newton once said, with regard to his scientific work:

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

From: Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27).

There have been many debates over the centuries about what creativity is, and where it comes from. See Wikipedia article. But one thing is certain, it exists. Acts of creation are all around us. In the cosmos, in nature, and in the works of all the peoples of the Earth. There is no lack of evidence that creativity permeates everything.

Psalm 19: 1-6 says:

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.

Genesis 1: 26-28 says,

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 

So, it would seem, if we are made in God’s likeness, and God is creative, then we will also have His ability to create.

If this is true, that we each have unique creative abilities bestowed on us by God, then we must decide how we will use them. Will we use them for good, or for evil? For the benefit of others or just for ourselves?

In the end, how we use our creativity, may turn out to be the only thing that matters.

I wonder, if at the end of our lives, the final question will be: “What did you create for me?”