How to be creative?

Excerpt from “Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative” by Austin Kleon

Most of us lament that the work we do is worthless, not creative, mundane, doesn’t have any impact etc; and start regretting our lives. Out of regret, we may try to search for how to be creative so that we can do some meaningful work.

Before understanding how to be creative, we need to understand what makes someone creative.

Our common conception is: We say someone is creative if they had created something unique. Novel. First — in — the — world. That’s why we mostly associate artists (musicians, actors, writers, etc;) and scientists as creative people.

In short, we believe Novel ideas ← → Being Creative. In reality, this equation has some flaws. The book “Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative” by Austin Kleon tells what it means to be creative and how to be creative. It’s a short book, with illustrations, graphics, quotes and is a good read for anyone.

Conundrum of Novelty

First of all, you need to understand that there’s nothing original. Whenever you hear someone saying that an idea is novel, you can safely assume that:

1. It’s inspired from previous works (Most of the recent works in well-established fields)
2. Maybe inspired from another field (Modern AI is inspired from Neuroscience, Psychology)
3. Or from Nature (Aeroplane, Social Networks, foundations of Chaos theory)
4. Even Dreams (Structure of Benzene, Harry Potter)

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” — Andre Gide

So, don’t try to be completely original. That thought burdens so much that you can’t actually work towards creating something.

If you are convinced that one can be creative and can have a fulfilling life, without being novel (i.e creativity != novelty), then Congrats!! That realization is the first step towards being creative.

Well, how to be creative then?

The author says “Imitate, Steal, Copy. But in a respectable way”. You might be thinking, “Whaaat!! Isn’t copying unethical?” There’s a difference between stealing and plagiarizing and Austin clearly demarcates between the two in the book.

Good Thief →Stealing creatively and honoring; Bad Thief → Plagiarizing (Pic Credits: Ebook)

A good thief does intense research, copies from several resources, transforms by adding his own ideas and credits previous research; a bad thief just dittos the previous work (probably makes superficial changes) and claims it to be their novel work. In short, a bad thief copies the work, a good thief copies the ideas behind the work.

“What is originality? Undetected plagiarism” — William Ralph Inge

“If you copy from one, it’s plagiarism. If you copy from many, it’s research” — Wilson Mizner

So, to be creative, imitate from others.

Okay!! But how does imitating translates to creativity?

Always there will be a gap between “Who you are?” and “Who you want to be?”. Try to close the gap as far as possible by working, not by procrastinating for a perfect day to begin. (Pic Credits: Ebook)

Well, there’s this funny syndrome known as “Imposter syndrome”. In short, it’s doubting the capabilities of self. At several occasions, you might had this thought — “Maybe I am not ready for this task, I will take some more time for perfection etc;” and thus procrastinate.

The truth is, “The process is what makes you, who you want to be. So, just start now as there’s no perfect time to wait for”

The best (and probably easiest) way to break imposter syndrome is by imitating others work. Fake it till you make it — Pretend to be making something until you actually make something. If you fake something, it boosts self confidence and you can put more energy in actually making it. Eventually, this cycle makes you creative.

What I should imitate?

“Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.” — Yohji Yamamoto

We can’t just imitate whatever is available. We need to understand that: “There’s no good or bad stuff. There’s only stuff that’s worth stealing (thus making it good) and stuff that’s not worth stealing (making it bad)”.

“It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.” — Mark Twain. So, in addition to filtering out, you have to develop the skill to distinguish whether an idea is worth stealing or not for future as well. Chart Credits: Me :)

So, select your heroes in your field, and start imitating their work. Think

1. What did they miss?
2. What didn’t they make?
3. What could’ve been made better?
4. If they were still alive, what would they be making today?

As you (every human indeed) are incapable of perfect imitation, understanding these shortcomings will help you progress and make your own contribution to it. Think like they do but add your recipe on it.

Note: Most of the research in any field (academia, industry etc;) goes like this.

Other tips offered

Use your hands

In this digital world, we stopped using our pens, papers and pencils and started using smartphones, laptops etc; The issue with this is “We edit our work before we start it”

Eg: Usage of delete button without even completing a draft. Thus hitting breaks to the creative flow of thoughts.

“True creativity doesn’t come in digital. It comes from analog”

Our nerves aren’t a one-way street — our bodies can tell our brains as much as our brains tell our bodies.

“We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.” — John Cleese

So, while working on creative project, get away from mobile phones and laptops. Once you make a draft, use your digital means to edit and rework. If your work is on laptop, stay away from social-media, mails while working

Side projects and hobbies are important

“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” — Jessica Hische. Because that’s what you love and you can’t even procrastinate.

If you have two or three real passions, don’t feel like you have to pick and choose between them. Don’t discard. Keep all your passions in your life. Let them talk to each other. Something will begin to happen.

Note: There’s no creative and non-creative work. Even the most challenging job in NASA can be boring after few years (because of repetition or you had learned almost everything in that area). So, if your work is challenging and you like it, you are good to go.

Any project has an approximate lifecycle as the above, whether in your professional life or personal hobby. (Pic Credits: Ebook)

Don’t throw any of yourself away. Hobbies just give away (happiness) and takes nothing.

Do good work and share with others

The key to being creative is to do some work and sharing with others. By this, you can hear other’s voices (if you are lucky to get feedback) and improve further.

It’s great if you shared your finished work, but it’s quite okay to share your work in progress as well. You may be thinking “What if they plagiarize my work as it’s not finished?”. Well, the author suggests a workaround. Don’t share your entire work. Share your dots but don’t connect them because only you knows how to join them. By doing this, you may get different insights on connecting the dots from others. (Pic Credits: Ebook)

Geography doesn’t matter but your environment does

Thanks to internet, anyone can learn, unlearn and relearn from their home. But your surroundings effect your mind, mood and the ability to grasp.

A cool trick to increase outcome is to go away from home to a distant place, so you can focus on your ideas (JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a hotel, so does several directors). Austin suggests to choose a place with bad weather so you can spend most of the time in room instead of touring (funny hack isn’t it!!) (Pic Credits: Ebook)

You can surround yourself with people whose career is different from yours as it triggers new ideas (new regions in brain) if you have enough deep discussions.

Creativity is Subtraction

Did you ever confuse on which brand to choose when you are in an aisle just because there are several alternatives. That’s “Choice paralysis” — More choices paradoxically create more confusion. Clever people know how to leave choices.

Creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out.

Be Nice

“Find the most talented person in the room, and if it’s not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. Try to be helpful. If you are the most talented person in the room, find another room”

As you improve, you will be at a stage to give advice to others. Be humble because remember that you might not improve if it’s not for someone who was humble to you in past.

If no one was humble to you in your success journey, you will know the hardships which will be all the more reason for you to be humble to your successors.

How this helps to be creative?

New ideas can come from any place, anytime (The initial funding for Instagram started in a bar). So, it doesn’t hurt for you to be nice.

Don’t wait for others validation

If you love someone’s work, go on, steal it, improve it, publish it, credit it to them, write to them. They can see or not see, respond or not respond, but that shouldn’t make you to stop getting inspired from them. Don’t expect anything in return. Someday, your work will speak for itself and they’ll respond (which means you had become famous in your field)

Be boring

“Be regular and orderly in your life (i.e boring), so that you may be violent and original in your work” — Gustave Flaubert

It takes a lot of energy to be creative. You won’t have enough energy for creative work if you waste it on other stuff.

So, for daily rituals, it’s okay to be boring. You can live a minimalist life if you want to. If your profession wants you to be flamboyant, it’s okay, otherwise, over consumerism (buying irrespective of whether you need or not) wastes your time, energy and money.

The dress style (almost always) of Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs are some examples. They admit that sometimes small decisions might be overwhelming and if was cleared by making defaults, it frees their mind and can focus on something more important.

“It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you.” — Franz Kafka

Read Bibliographies

If you are not an avid reader, start reading books. Or podcasts. Or informative YouTube channels. Whatever it maybe, try to consume new information. You can start with the books suggested by your heroes (or the ones written by them). Fiction also helps as it increases imagination. That’s the best way to start getting ideas.

If you are an avid reader, you might want to check bibliographies more often (I’ve to confess that I won’t check it as often as I ought to).

“Nothing is more important than an unread library” — John Waters.

“It’s not the book that you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to”. Your hero got inspired from a book that he/she mentioned in bibliography. So, it’s worth taking a shot. (Pic Credits: Ebook)