Posts Tagged ‘Creativity’

Dirty secrets first: I stole and adapted this concept from Dave Thomas, a prominent person presently playing with Pragmatic Programmers. But he stole and adapted from elsewhere, so I’ll follow his lead. Dave writes about the concept of Code Katas, saying this:

How do you get to be a great musician? It helps to know the theory, and to understand the mechanics of your instrument. It helps to have talent. But ultimately, greatness comes practicing; applying the theory over and over again, using feedback to get better every time.

He goes on to discuss how people learn in Karate.  They perform katas, which are rote memorized run-throughs of a scripted movement.  The idea is to train your muscle memory so that you react the right way instinctively when you, ahem, need your mad ninja skills.  So what Dave adapted from karate to programming, I’m adapting to the creative arts.  Sure, creative types like you and me depend on trying new things, but a lot of creative production work is rote performance, too.  Here’s a sample from my work day:

“Shift + Command + N makes a new layer.  L selects the lasso tool. Command + J jumps the selection to a new layer.  Command click on the new layer to reselect, then Shift + Command + I inverts your selection.”

Boring, right?  But it’s damned useful when you need to know it.  And when I go through those steps, even in my head, I can feel a rhythm to it.  It’s like a kata for me.  When I’m producing, I can run through those steps with my fingers.  My brain barely engages.  That leaves me bandwidth to deal with the creative side of the work, the object or the aesthetic.  I can wonder whether red or darker red will work this time, instead of trying to make the mechanics come together.  It’s my equivalent of a ninja skill, if you will.

Shooting photos is the same for me.  I run through checklists instincitvely.  “ISO – check.  White balance – check.  Light direction – check.  Aperture needed – check.  Shutter speed – check.  Composition – check.  Subject – Wait, no, the subject looks goofy.”  If I was caught up with white balance – if I didn’t know that stuff cold – I’d never get around to thinking about my goofy-looking subject.  I’d never be able to consider that I have a human in front of the camera – someone who’s worried about how they look or waiting for some direction from me.

So whatever yoour creative work is, I encourage you to find some katas to practice.  Make a routine to run through, and do it half-speed, three-quarter speed, full speed.  Get your muscles used to the work so your brain can move to higher-order thinking.  Get some rhythm and enjoy the results.

So, I’m realizing more and more what my problem is. I want to be a creative person but hate putting the effort into becoming one. I was born to parents who believed in me and valued musical instruction. They thought it would be a good use of their money to spend twenty dollars a week for six years on piano lessons. I still remember walking up those stairs to Yamaha Music School here in Reedley right off of G Street. When I found out how much money they had spent on those lessons when it came time for me to buy my first car I about died. Didn’t they know their son wasn’t going to be the next great anything? I mean really. I’m no Bach, Sigur Ros, or even Hannah Montana.

Something in me just really hates the idea that music should be hard, and loves the idea that music can come naturally. But music is just like any other language in which you want to become fluent; it flows freely once you’ve learned it’s pragmatics, syntax, and semantics.

I still try to cheat though. My wife told me about two months ago that I spend a lot more time buying musical stuff than actually playing it. It’s so true. It’s a lot easier to buy something that feels creative than work on something that is creative. But when was “The Creative” anything you could ever purchase? 

So, starting now, I’m making a resolution. Every-time I feel like selling my internal desire to be creative and pawn it on something or someone that has already produced something creative, I’m gonna remind myself there is no dollar amount I can pay that will lay claim to someone else’s work. What I should spent my time doing is mastering my craft. I should be forcing myself to learn the notes of the fret-board I carelessly push my fingertips against. I should actually try for a change instead of simply settling. I’m tired of settling. I need a community of people that will tear me away from gizmos and gadgets and convince me that I have something to offer the world that can never be produced or bought with a bank account.

Community and creativity hava a lot more in common than the letter C. For starters, there are other letters they share, like i, t. And sometimes y. I could even be missing some others, especially if you spell the words in your own creative language.

Other things, like an audience for a movie screening, or a crowd for a mosh pit, really make the whole experience worth it, don’t they? For both the creator and the observer. Now, of course, there are those artistic creations that were never intended to be seen by anyone at all, like those bricks they discovered while renovating a cathedral that had ornate paintings, and clearly not by mistake, on the side facing the wall and mortar.

But let’s consider that kind of art the exception to the rule. And that rule being: Creativity really, really, really, really wants to be shared with others, in community. And, of course, the one doing the creativitying would prefer a community who is supportive and eager for the art, or photos, or songs, or brownies. I would go so far as to say the artist’s community is the oxygen that stokes the flame of his or her creativity. Sure, there’s the kind of artist who is a totally reclusive loner in his studio in the woods, but I would bet you he has some kind of social outlet for his art, even if it’s a mangy pet. And if not, that is the beginning of the end of the creative spirit. With nowhere to truly exhale, it dies of self-asphyxiation.

Creativity must be shared. Uniqueness must be made known. On the micro level, that’s interrupting your writing to say to your wife, “Listen to this…”. On the macro level it’s sending a space probe out into the cosmos with fragments of the human experience engraved on a gold record, just in case the thing called Community is much bigger than we think.