Creativity

There are moments when you have ideas in your mind, when you want to create something,but you just cant make it happen. You know what you want and what exactly you must create, you know how to make it happen and you have the skill to do it. But things are just not falling into place. All the things you need are ready, yet there is something missing. You cant start your creation. Even if you have started, you stumble, there are conflicts of ideas, or perhaps all your ideas which seemed so perfect become pieces of absolute imperfection or atleast, they seem to have become so to you.
It is difficult to create, whatever it is that we are trying to create. It requires a certain degree of skill and the right surroundings. I would like to discuss about the importance of the right kind of surroundings and the role it plays in our creativity. It is well known that aritsts and writers seek solitude and loneliness for giving shape to their works. Writers from Ian Fleming, who sought refuge in Jamaica for making his suave secret agent, to J K Rowling who is supposed to have formed the idea of the teenage wizard during a train journey and also is thought to have written parts of her book at a London coffee shop, have shown that surroundings play an important role in our creations. Our surroundings influence, the flow of ideas, words and brush strokes,it influences the way we look at the world and this in turn reflects in our creations.This is because, I believe that, whoever is the author or painter or poet, derives some sort of influence and ideas from his/her own life. There is a distinct personal element in the writings of each author irrespective of geographical region or the time-period of the creation. J R R Tolkien wrote parts of Lord of The Rings, the more famous of his stories about middle earth during the German blitzkrieg and this definitely reflects in his portrayal of the battles in the book. Another obvious one such series is that of Sherlock Holmes written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is little known the detective, with what it seems to have been super human deduction power and intelligence, had a real life counter-part and that he was the author's teacher at medical school. Getting back to Ian Fleming, he had heard the heroic stories of soldiers ans spies at war during WW1 from his teacher whose husband was in the army. Mario Puzo, who had three children when he writing, had shut himself up in a room away from the chatter and noise of the children and his children recall seeing very little of him those days and even when they saw him, he was always lost in thought.
The field of science and research is also a field that requires creativity, infact it requires more creativity than art or literature. Scientists are totally committed to their tasks and most of them flourish when left to their own devices and do not appreciate any outside disturbance. Our own President, Dr.Abdul Kalam, has remained a bachelor, and the reason is because he had commited himself to tne task of fortifying our defences and wanted no outside interferences. People achieve maximum efficiency when left to their own devices.
The right sort of surroundings can work wonders. It can inspire us and make a poet out of a peasent. One doesnt have to be born with the ability to be creative or artistic or with the ability to write or speak well. It can be developed and nurtured. It is about the right kind of exposure and influence and there is nothing better than the nature and our surroundings to make a creative genius. One must look into one's own surroundings to get ideas and inspirations. The right kind of mind set is also important. A mind troubled by the struggle that is daily life or someone who has barely enough time to relax, someone struggling to make two ends meet etc find it difficult to unleash their creativity. The right atmosphere can make us think in ways that might seem impossible to someone else and these thoughts are the ones that change the world. Our own sages sought refuge in the forests to meditate and to discover the secrets of the world, to discover and understand oneself.
Another important thing that surroundings must provide for someone to flourish is encouragement and the rightkind of criticism. Even if the creation is not that good, one must encourage the person to try and improve his work. The best of artists can be dejected by the first negative response they get to their work and this is most evident in the case of Vincent Van Gogh, who during his lifetime was unfortunate to have none of his paintings create profit and got so dejected by this and the death of his Brother Theo Van Gogh, that he took his life immediately after the completion of one of his most famous works Crows in the Field. Now, his paintings are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a small consolation for one of the greatest painters who took his life due to depression caused by the lack of appreciation of his work. The right amount of encouragement and support can enhance creativity as it provides the creator with a sense of security which provides the right envrionment to work in. That is the reason why artists, sculptors and others were patronised by the noble families across the world for whom they made some of the best known works of art. The church sponsored artists like Bernini and Michaelangelo and their creations adorn the Vatican and Rome and are considered some of the best works ever. Scientists are also provided support and even now,various universities support and fund their work so that these efforts can bring about a better future for us all.