Why are we often frightened to demonstrate our work? Perhaps I’m in the minority, but I have often hesitated to share fruits of my labor. Whether artistic, athletic, or academic, I tended to keep my projects hidden, if I had a say in the matter. While I’m unsure how many others resonate with my reluctance, I do know that I am not alone in this mindset. Is this mindset good? Does it more significantly promote humility or insecurity? Should we encourage such thoughts or deter them?
I propose that our fear of expressing our creativity is rooted in the uniquely personal nature of the human imagination, for no human faculty offers so clear a window into one’s soul. To help us more properly respond to the sentiment in question, I wish to investigate its origin.
When we create, we engage at least three distinct faculties: understanding, imagination, and the body. Consider a chef. To cook well, the chef must know the traits and capabilities of all his ingredients and what combinations create certain flavors. Additionally, a chef utilizes his imagination by taking his understanding of food and taste and reorganizing the ingredients to develop his own dish. This imagination requires inventiveness and vision, which facilitate the means to envision a delicious meal no one has yet tasted. At this point, a successful chef needs the physical technique to effectively assemble these ingredients with proper timing to manifest his conceptualized work.
Creating a meal, we can see, is a holistic exercise, requiring each aspect of a person. It is not merely an intellectual pursuit, an imaginative endeavor, or a physical feat – it is all three. Of course, cooking is not the only activity that employs these faculties. Arts such as music, poetry, and theater also demand intellect, creativity, and physicality. Even more "practical" tasks can require holistic efforts, such as interior design and architecture.
Creating a meal, we can see, is a holistic exercise, requiring each aspect of a person. It is not merely an intellectual pursuit, an imaginative endeavor, or a physical feat – it is all three. Of course, cooking is not the only activity that employs these faculties. Arts such as music, poetry, and theater also demand intellect, creativity, and physicality. Even more "practical" tasks can require holistic efforts, such as interior design and architecture.
With all that said, let’s begin working back towards the original question of the pride and pains of creativity by first exploring an example of a creative work. To continue the culinary theme, suppose a kindly grandmother prepares macaroni and cheese for her grandchildren on two separate occasions. For the first meal, she follows a box recipe to the letter. None of the grandchildren are particularly excited about the mac and cheese, but they don't complain and eat everything served to them. The grandmother thinks nothing of this situation. As long as they liked the food well enough and were full, she did her job. For the second meal, suppose that the grandmother spent hours concocting a special mac and cheese recipe for her grandchildren. They were her little angels, after all, and deserved her best efforts. She prepared six different kinds of cheese and a couple meats for the dish, and she threw in the best pasta in her pantry. Her grandchildren arrived at the lunch table before she could try the final product herself, so she didn't know exactly how her concoction tasted. Like the first meal, the grandchildren don't appear thrilled by the dish, but they satisfy their appetites and finish the whole pot. Unlike the first situation, the grandmother finds herself a little disappointed that the dish she created was not met with more appreciation than the first. After all, this was her macaroni and cheese, made especially for her beloved grandchildren. Whether the dish was any better than the first cannot even be considered; she had not tried it herself, so she couldn't simply be disappointed her grandchildren didn't recognize better food. No, she is disappointed that her grandchildren didn't better appreciate her creation.
While I can't say how often a situation like this arises, I'm sure the story reminds us all of a certain pride one feels when they create a recipe rather than following one. One becomes a chef and not merely a cook. And what is the difference between the two? Certainly not knowledge or physical prowess; both traits are needed for both jobs. Rather, a chef requires more creativity than a cook.
It is this creativity that induces attachment to our work, a sense of ownership. We feel the same attachment in essays we write in school, and it is an attachment lacking in mathematical or accounting assignments. With the former, I thought of a response, I phrased this concept well, I was clever. With the latter, the best we can say is that we were smart enough to follow the rules to reach the correct answer. We may write a sentence no one has ever written before, but countless students have discovered the sum of two plus two. This, I suspect, is why I find students (including myself) to naturally respond defensively when their writing is critiqued in any way, but shrug when an accounting error is made. With the former, we (often subconsciously) perceive an attack on our personally chosen way of handling the English language and/or the concepts we present. With the latter, we simply committed a systematic error. Creative projects also provoke more reaction than systematic ones. If one were to review a math problem, the best they can do is say "Yes, this is correct," or "No, this is wrong." Because creative projects cannot be so decisively analyzed, some discussion is required. And because significant emotion is attached to these projects, these discussions can become rather unpleasant, to put it simply.
For many people, whether they recognize or admit it or not, this discord is why they hesitate to create or share their creations. Creativity showcases the self to the world and makes it vulnerable to attack. It is easy to conclude that the only way to win is to avoid playing the game and subsequently seclude one's creativity. Why bother putting your soul into a project if it comes back bruised?
To those who may have considered some form of this question, I would humbly propose that we should still create because we must. We are, inherently and inevitably, creators. Our creativity is what sets humanity apart in the universe--after all, our creativity brought us out of caves and into communities. Our inventions and our art have made life more pleasant and more worth living. Each contributor to our present state has had to undergo the same doubts, pressures, and disappointments we feel when we create. Yet they pressed on, and, like the humans we are, so must we.
While I can't say how often a situation like this arises, I'm sure the story reminds us all of a certain pride one feels when they create a recipe rather than following one. One becomes a chef and not merely a cook. And what is the difference between the two? Certainly not knowledge or physical prowess; both traits are needed for both jobs. Rather, a chef requires more creativity than a cook.
It is this creativity that induces attachment to our work, a sense of ownership. We feel the same attachment in essays we write in school, and it is an attachment lacking in mathematical or accounting assignments. With the former, I thought of a response, I phrased this concept well, I was clever. With the latter, the best we can say is that we were smart enough to follow the rules to reach the correct answer. We may write a sentence no one has ever written before, but countless students have discovered the sum of two plus two. This, I suspect, is why I find students (including myself) to naturally respond defensively when their writing is critiqued in any way, but shrug when an accounting error is made. With the former, we (often subconsciously) perceive an attack on our personally chosen way of handling the English language and/or the concepts we present. With the latter, we simply committed a systematic error. Creative projects also provoke more reaction than systematic ones. If one were to review a math problem, the best they can do is say "Yes, this is correct," or "No, this is wrong." Because creative projects cannot be so decisively analyzed, some discussion is required. And because significant emotion is attached to these projects, these discussions can become rather unpleasant, to put it simply.
For many people, whether they recognize or admit it or not, this discord is why they hesitate to create or share their creations. Creativity showcases the self to the world and makes it vulnerable to attack. It is easy to conclude that the only way to win is to avoid playing the game and subsequently seclude one's creativity. Why bother putting your soul into a project if it comes back bruised?
To those who may have considered some form of this question, I would humbly propose that we should still create because we must. We are, inherently and inevitably, creators. Our creativity is what sets humanity apart in the universe--after all, our creativity brought us out of caves and into communities. Our inventions and our art have made life more pleasant and more worth living. Each contributor to our present state has had to undergo the same doubts, pressures, and disappointments we feel when we create. Yet they pressed on, and, like the humans we are, so must we.
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