# 3 "What is Creativity, and How Do We Find it?"
Creativity begins with curiosity, and curiosity leads us down a path of exploration.
I remember reading The Scarlet Letter for the first time in high school on a month-long vacation from boarding school.
We lived on the top of a hilly range in a rural area of northern Malawi in Africa. Our house, and particularly my room, whose two large windows faced a rolling, green valley below, was conducive to creativity: It was beautiful, quiet and as the youngest of three, my two older siblings having already moved back to the United States, I was alone. I had time to think and ponder, which has led me along many a trail in my lifetime.
A woman takes her first step out of weathered stone prison, through an old oak door, into the sunlight. Within the confines of a 17th Century Massachusetts Bay Colony, the woman—Hester Prynne—fell in love, and through that love bore a bastard child.
It was noted by the writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, that when she stepped into that bright light from prison, her beauty had not been diminished.
What I didn’t expect, and will always remember, was how much the story impacted my sixteen-year-old mind. The bigger questions in life began then, by reading The Scarlet Letter.
How could love be wrong? If love was from God, could it really be tainted by impurity?
Hester’s love was labeled “wrong,” by the Puritan society, and because of her “sin,” she was to bear the scarlet marking of the letter, “A” for adultery, on her chest for the rest of her life. Her story spoke my language. I too had been raised in a strict, traditional Christian home and my American boarding school was ten times more conservative than my family.
I deeply, and with conviction, believed as a teenager—and I still believe now—in God. But my heart was only then first awakened to the idea that maybe, just maybe, we humans see God how we are instead of how He actually is.
What did The Scarlet Letter teach me?
It opened my mind to the idea that perhaps, just perhaps I needn’t automatically believe what I’m told by those in authority above me, or even the Church…
How and Why is that Important to Creativity?
We are taught that creativity comes from inspiration. After all Plato himself said that “divine inspiration comes from above.” Yet he also said that one must get alone in one’s cave. We might interpret that to mean that we should separate ourselves and be alone to dig in deep. But we can only do that if our minds are free. As Creatives, getting alone with ourselves could plummet us into thoughts about unresolved pain.
I would venture to say that most of us Creatives re-channel our pain into our Works of art. But if that’s the case, our Work will never heal us. Rather, we will only keep reliving our trauma.
If we want our “divine inspiration” to heal us, body, soul and spirit, then we must find another source of creativity than pain.
That’s the crux.
So many of are endlessly seeking thrills, experiences, or anything that might bring us creative inspiration. We are desperate, for how else will we create anything new and revolutionary?
There must be another method of Creativity. The truth is that there are many different ways that we can find creativity—or should I say that Creativity can find us!
The things that we enjoy.
Nature.
Music.
A conversation with someone.
Gourmet cuisine.
Experience in life.
Traveling to a new culture.
Sometimes we get stuck in a box. We look at Creativity from one angle. Perhaps creativity comes often from being inspired by these things, but what if we don’t have opportunity? Must we empty our pockets simply to seek out creativity?
Let’s go deeper.
What is it that causes inspiration? That’s where I believe curiosity comes into play.
Creativity begins with curiosity, and curiosity leads us down a path of exploration.
What if it’s not so much about experience.
What if it’s more about a change in perspective, about getting outside of the box that we put ourselves in, in our way of thinking?
Ask a question. Give yourself permission to question what society tells you that you shouldn’t. Let your mind be free of societal constraints, from the fear or man. Are you brave enough to be honest with yourself and ask yourself the hard questions? It is a frightening experience, but I promise it will take you to new levels of personal enlightenment.
That’s what happened to me by reading The Scarlet Letter, and that’s what happened to me this week as I was alone on a walk in the forest.
It was Sunday afternoon, a very restful and quiet time in Germany. No one is allowed to make noise on a Sunday (i.e. machinery, lawn mower, etc.). It is a day of rest to stop, reflect and listen to the world around us. The wind was quite feverous, and the sky cloudy and gray, as it so often is in winter here. I was tempted to simply continue sitting in front of the fire and read.
But I thought to myself, I will feel more fulfilled later today if I take a walk. For me personally, walking through beautiful landscapes, causes my mind to churn, my body to be rejuvenated, and I arrive home with rosy cheeks, a smile, and some kind of revelation to relate to my husband.
For some reason, a song by Hozier, whom I can’t say that I’ve ever listened to, was somehow stuck in my head, the lines repeating in my mind.
Take me to church…
I felt goosebumps course through my body; that’s my signal that something more is going on—that a deep and powerful message lies behind the words.
I need to listen to the words of this song and understand what the singer is communicating, I thought to myself, insidiously curious.
I put the song on repeat and listened. It was just me, the calm, cool winter air and the music soaring into my ears.
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife.
Okay, I thought, It’s about sex, love, religion… But I didn’t really understand, so I kept listening, over and over again. And when I got home, I researched what the singer intended with his words.
Religion had pointed out what he was doing wrong in his life, instead of what he was doing right. He intended the song to defend sexuality, the love between a man and a woman, and love of any kind. He was fighting against the ideology that someone, namely the Church, could control the most natural part of our being—sex and whom we love. [1]
I’m not here to defend obscure sexuality. It’s not about that. It’s about Mankind’s free choice, his free will, that religion has no say over. What does God say about sexuality? Now that’s another story for each person to go on his or her own journey to find out.
That was the very same principle that I took out of The Scarlet Letter.
History is full of religious martyrs—people whose hearts and souls were deeply wounded by the institution that was supposed to save them.
And that is why I felt chills. The core message of Hozier’s song was freedom from the constraints of manmade religion.
To impose autocracy over other human beings—something that most religions have long done—is blasphemous.
Reading The Scarlet Letter was the catalyst that propelled me into a life-long journey of finding out what I really thought about religion, if I believed what I had been taught, and why. It gave me permission to dig deep into my soul, and to be open to what I found there.
I was happy to learn that what I found inside myself was good. I also found a compassionate, supernatural being that I then chose to continue to believe in.
How did I find the creativity to write this piece? It began with a thought, inspired by something that feeds me: In this case first reading The Scarlet Letter, and secondly, listening to a talented musician sing out his thoughts about life.
And I finally understood that religion—not God—is flawed.
[1] CBS News: The National, “Hozier Explains Take me to Church Song and Video,” Video, February 20, 2015, https://www.youtube.com.