Exercises to get started while having fun.
We do not become creative after getting a good night’s sleep.
It is not important to be talented to be creative.
We can all be, we all are.
But it takes a lot of work.
Creativity: we will find it, nurture it, bring it to light.
So here we go!
Two considerations to begin with:
- Environment stimulates creativity but is not always determinative.
- It doesn’t matter how much effort we put into being creative. We can reap little or nothing. We cannot quantify and plan.
The whole path to discovery is rewarding, though.
Having the idea of the character and putting his/her habits on paper is a creative act that we do not know where it will take us, but it makes us feel fulfilled and anchored in life.
Because creativity gives meaning to life, and therefore life and creation are inextricably intertwined.
Creating something is not a fluke and is not divorced from the world around us.
But before you create, you have to learn the rules, you have to know what you are doing.
If you want to play an instrument you have to learn the notes.
If you want to paint you have to know what colors are and how to use them.
The basics of everything are the roots and the foundation.
I’ll give you two exercises to start on this path.
The first is:
📍Make time at least once a day to walk.
Give up the car and the elevator.
In that time ranging from ten minutes to half an hour, observe and make a mental note (or on a sheet of paper if you have the material with you) how many steps you have walked down, how many yellow or red or blue cars you have seen, how many pine trees or magnolias you have encountered, how many steps you have to take from the front door to the street.
Choose a few subjects, not many, and use numbering to realize what you are seeing.
📍The second is:
Imagine yourself in a movie.
You are in a courtroom and you are the key witness who has to describe the crime scene. Describe in a hypothetical interrogation what you have just seen in great detail.
Are you able to do this, did you observe well?
If you are not sure, try again the next day. Resume with your observations and imagine the scene again.
You will realize how exercised your attention is and how much distraction has prevented you from seeing the space around you.
📌 What are these exercises for?
To improve observation, to keep you anchored in reality.
Because we no longer know how to move in space, we live in the mind, online or through other people’s stories.
📌 What is the purpose of attention in creating?
Isn’t it something that is done in a rush?
Attention to the particular, to what is in front of us, to the people we meet, to the cities we pass through, is above all living.
And to create you have to live, you have to intersect with life.
Nothing can distort you from creativity if we have paid attention to the space around us. To the voices, to the colors.
Creativity helps us to live. But it is also the Life that helps creativity.
Look around you. Start observing.
It is perhaps the root of every exercise, every creative intent.
Look.
Rest your eyes on what is going through life.
Turn your gaze and begin.
You will find that you have never really looked.
To conclude, a very interesting short video:
