Do you understand Creativity ?

Creativity is a mental activity that results in the development of innovative or insightful ideas that change a field of knowledge in a certain way. This means that creativity is a relative term. An idea that was very creative a hundred years ago would probably not be called creative by today’s standards. In order for something to be creative, it must contribute something new to society. Thus, an idea cannot be called creative until society judges it to be creative.

In another definition Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.

In “Creativity” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author describes three different types of creativity.

The first type of creativity is actually an incorrect definition and pertains to people who are interesting and fun to be around. They have stimulating ideas and appear to be intelligent, witty people. These people may produce creative ideas that contribute something new to society, but not necessarily. For clarity we will call these people “brilliant” instead of creative.

The second type of creativity is called “personal creativity” and refers to people who are insightful and produce ideas that would be classified as creative, but they are either ahead of their time or keep their ideas to themselves.

The third type of creativity refers to people or ideas that change our culture in significant ways. Thomas Edison and his light bulb would be a good example of a truly creative person and his creative idea.