Creativity

Inside the human mind

Creativity, an ability, a skill, a mindset, something wired deep within the subconscious of all of us. Without it, life is boring, lacking depth, and mundane. Unstable, it brings chaos and destruction. Too much of it, we can find ourselves lost in a sea of ideas and thoughts unable to find escape from the depths of our minds. Creativity in an interesting concept that can be very difficult to understand. We can try with all our might to explain it but it’s far too complex to fully wrap our minds around. So complex that it even invented it’s own name. In fact, everything line you're currently reading, every sentence, every letter, is a product of this strange force inside our heads. It’s hard to even comprehend the impact that creativity has had in our lives, and although we probably won’t ever understand the full capacity of this inner drive, we can understand the feelings and emotions it ignites in all of us.

Creativity can best be described as a desire to make your thoughts a reality. It is commonly believed that our creative impulses take place within the right side of our brain. However the neuroscience behind the concept suggests that each segment of our brain is involved in the creative process. From the incubation of a thought, to the formation of and idea, to the formulation of a plan, ending in the physical execution, almost every region of our brain is activated. In a study done by The Scientific American, it was found that the most creative people typically had less space between their right and left side brains. One of the greatest creative geniuses of our time, Albert Einstein, was known to have both a smaller space between the hemispheres of his brain compared to the average person, as well as thicker fibers connecting them. It can also be noted that Einstein had much larger neurons in his left hippocampus (the part of the brain that regulates emotion). This is a perfect example of how both sides of the brain are involved in our creative process. What made Einstein so creative is the use of both hemispheres of his brain. All in all, creativity is the responsibility of our entire brain, every bit of our mind is involved from the initial thought, to the final outcome.

The neuroscience behind creativity is interesting, but it lacks in explaining the emotional aspects. For this we can turn to psychological studies. A study conducted by Harvard student Malinda McPherson on jazz musicians found an increase in creative impulses when the musicians were told to play a freestyle melody conveying the emotions of a picture of a smiling woman. UC San Francisco professor Dr. Charles Limb simply said “The bottom line is emotion matters” when speaking about creativity. Past trauma, emotional distress, happiness, depression, anxiety, nearly each one of our emotions all play a part in our creative thought process and output. Perhaps this is what makes creativity so complex. Our emotions alone are very difficult to wrap our heads around, so something that brings forth words, art, music and inventions that is driven by emotions is incredibly complicated and hard to understand.

Overall, we know that creativity is one of the most important things in the world. It’s one of the things that makes us all human, yet makes us all unique. While we may never fully understand what creativity is and how it works, we will always be able to see the impact it’s had on society. From the device you’re reading this on, to the words you’re reading, nearly everything around you was brought into existence by this internal force known as creativity.

Braden Schmidt 11-3-2019