Creativity and Expression

It's a personal belief of mine that every (normal/healthy) person has some sort of creative impulse. It's a part of what makes us human, the ability to think creatively. Animals don't do this, regardless of how intelligent they are. Ants have the capacity for social structures every bit as insanely complicated as ours, and are very dexterous creatures, and yet no ant has ever painted a picture. The young of other species don't surprise us with tales of spontaneous, uninhibited fantasy. Creative potential, as far as I'm concerned, may actually trump intelligence as the single most important part of being human (I know they're related, don't shoot me).

Knowing I think this way about creativity, it should come as no surprise that I value creative expression in all its forms. Write a story, draw a picture, sing a song. Nobody really cares in the grand scheme of things if it's bad, and if it's good, who knows? Build it and they will come, I think is the expression. People gawk in awe of the achievements of the famous artists and performers, and rightly so, but I think success in the creative disciplines is simply to create something genuine, something uniquely yours. Moreover, I think that's essential for mental health; it's not healthy to try and shut off your creative impulse, and bottling yourself up in the more quantitative arenas of life can cause all sorts of damage. Look at the number of people devoting themselves to "material" fields and the number of people who die of stress-related heart disease and the like. I know a person who's a Mathematics major here at Berkeley (basically as quantitative as you can get) and spends his spare time playing really beautiful pieces on the piano. Good job, Sooshi, keep that up. I'm no exception, either. I started doing this blog (partially) as an exercise to relieve some of the pressure in my mind.

All that being said, there's an important distinction to make here. Creativity and expression are important; it's equally important not to inflict your creativity on people who aren't interested. Play an instrument? This is excellent, practice someplace until you're confident enough to play in public. Write? Good, work and develop your skills at it. Dance? I'm jealous. Just make sure you have an understanding of rhythm and elements. I'm not saying everybody has to be a virtuoso when they express themselves, certainly not. Nobody would ever do anything if that was the requirement. The whole point is to practice and improve your means of expression to more fully express yourself as it evolves.

However, people have a right to privacy, in this sense as well as others. If they want to share in your creative experience, people are more than capable of coming over and making that known, or listening to your songs, or admiring your painting, or whatever. There's no need to spontaneously express yourself in a loud and rambunctious way, either. It's just another case of time and place appropriateness. Everyone has a castle in their head, and it's pretty bad manners to come smashing down the gates of their mental sanctuary to talk about just how great your book is going to be, or how awesome your presentation for your company is. Respect the mental sovereignty of other people, and you'll generate a lot more respect as a result.

TL;DR Don't erratically play the damn bongos on the bus.