Why do we experience the urge to be creative?

Source: A-Durand via Wikimedia Commons

 

Why be creative?  Often the answer to this simple question is couched in terms of how creativity can bring us and others a bountiful bevy of better things:  better products, better services, better ways of doing.  Creativity brings with it, it is true, a host of instrumental advantages –– improvements in how we work, play, think, and live.  A better this, a better that _______ (you fill in the blanks).

But is this answer the full story?  Might there be more to be said?  Might being creative (often) be something desirable just in and of itself?  Is being creative itself rewarding?  Does being creative feel good?

There are many reasons to think so. . . .

—> To read more,  see Wilma’s “Creativity Feels Good!”

Insights into the creative process: A Q&A with illustrator/writer Mike Lowery

Q&A_image

The lines between author and reader are maybe not as sharply drawn as they used to be. Book 1 of Mike Lowery’s Doodle Adventures is a great example. “You draw the story!” the book’s cover tells us. And so we do…

But what’s the story behind the story?

Just as Lowery asks his young readers to pledge to “finish this book to get our heroes home safe at the end,” I asked him to pledge to freely improvise answering questions about his own creative journeys.

Lowery_oath

Each of the 8 questions I posed to him draw upon the science-based way of thinking about innovative thought and action that we develop in Innovating Minds: Rethinking Creativity to Inspire Change. You can find the Q & A here.