What does it mean to Create or be Creative?
Many people have asked me about my creative process and philosophy behind my art. How do I decide what to draw? Do I draw things “from scratch”? As an amateur artist, I don’t have much time, where do I get my ideas from? I wanted to write a medium length blog post to answer these questions. In particular, I hoped to answer the philosophical question on “what it means to create or be creative?” on a personal level.
Note that I write a bit about philosophy below and I am by no means a trained philosopher in any way. So if there are any lines of thinking that are incorrect, please don’t hesitate to correct me. The following is of course my opinion formulated from what I have read.
First, I’d like to establish two viewpoints on creativity. Then from the arguments of each, I will conclude on which of the two viewpoints I believe are more accurate.
View 1: There is No Such Thing as True Creativity
1. Postmodern and Empiricist theories[1] –The jaded king has said “what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Similarly, Mark Twain has also quoted, “there is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” This is also one of the fundamental tenants of David Hume’s philosophy of empiricism (we can only know things from our senses). Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature (1739-40, 1.1.3.2) distinguishes between imagination and memory. Hume’s deconstruction of imagination would posit that imagination comes only from what has been experienced before[2]. Thus, there is really no such thing as imagination or creativity; everything is just a rehash of previous experiences.
In some ways art is exactly like this. Artists take reference pictures; put the images together in their mind to make a composition. The abundance of stock images, reference pictures for sale is further substantive proof that art is a recycling of previously seen images. When people ask me if I draw from “imagination”, the answer would be yes, but only in the colloquial term. Meaning I have reference pictures and make many liberties to change areas. Note that there is no specific one picture I copy everything from for my compositions. Similar to most professional illustrators, everything is from “imagination”. But Hume would scoff at our view and our usage of the term “imagination” or what we consider to be “creativity”.
But is that all to art and creative work? If the former theory is all there is to creative thought and expression, why bother to create at all? If there is nothing original, is there any point to creativity at all? What does being creative even mean?
View 2: Creative work as Enlivening and Drawing out the Truth
2. Creative work brings out the truth, revives it, brings out beauty, makes it visible to all –Art and creativity is thought by some to preexist in an objective realm, our role as creative individuals is to bring out its beauty. We are to bring out the light. Take for example, this beautiful poem by Leonard Bernstein, acclaimed Jewish-American composer, conductor, lecturer and pianist, recited in 1998:
In the beginning was the note,
And the note was with God.
And whosoever can reach that note,
Reach high and bring it back to us on earth,
To our earthly ears,
He is a composer,
And to the extent of his reach Partakes of the Divine.[3]
Here, Bernstein, though not much has definitely been said about his religious views, is affirming what he knows in his heart, that music and creative work is preexisting. The musician draws out the note which is preexisting. This body of thought is surprisingly prevalent among artists and creatives alike and is far older than Bernstein. It is similar to Socrates’/Plato’s theory of Forms. Plato infers that there are universals, or Forms, which make up the constructs of our reality. The ideal functioning of the human being is to find and adopt the principles of the ideal Forms of a human being; specifically, forms of morality (for example Justice, Piety, Courage etc.).[4]
Contemporary thinkers and intellectuals are also drawn to this idea. I would argue that this is because this feeling is so innate to human experience. We feel as if we are drawing out meaning from an objective reality, this is the only way our work becomes meaningful. Cal Newport, Ph.D, in his bestselling 2016 non-fiction book, “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” likens value creating, creative work, or “deep work” to work that draws out the meaning of objects. Newport draws from the philosophy of American philosophers Dreyfus and Kelly, who state that the task of a craftsman “is not to generate meaning, but rather to cultivate in himself the skill discerning the meanings already there”[5]. Dreyfus and Kelly use the analogy of a wheelwright who brings out the value out of the wood which is already there.
This is most apparent in J.R.R. Tolkien’s worldview and what he (and others) has coined as “Sub-creation”. To Tolkien, humans are participating in God’s creation by sub-creating[6]. To Tolkien, God makes each and every day new again. For example God renews each day by making the flowers bloom, spring after winter, and dawn after darkness[7]. In the same way, we are participants in this process via our sub-creations, by renewing things of old, refreshing and bringing out the beauty of God’s work again. Tolkien’s worldview is elegantly expressed in his 1931 poem Mythopoeia. See excerpts below and emphasis added:
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act: …
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.[8]
Tolkien writes that Man is a Sub-creator, making things of meaning from a refracted light coming from a single White light. In this act of creation Man displays the lordship he once owned.
Perhaps this is why the verse, John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”, is so powerful to us. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, in his seminal work “Man’s search for Meaning” writes:
“At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. “Et lux in tenebris lucet” —and the light shineth in the darkness.”
Frankl here is affirming that meaning and creation is initiated from a higher source; the light shining through the darkness. Frankl also writes, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” To Frankl, creativity and arts are the same as a meaningful life. It is not created, the meaning is preexisting, the art is preexisting, and it must be drawn out.
It’s pretty evident from the length, and I hope, fervor, of which I’ve advocated for the latter position where my worldview resides. I truly believe in the second position, not just because of all the brilliant minds quoted, but because I believe the worldview is coherent and aligned with what I experience. It is the only way our creative work and life has meaning.
[1] I’m not really sure how to label this type of thinking. It can be argued that David Hume’s theories on imagination, induction, causation, and belief in radical skepticism was a precursor to post-modern thought. I think it is somewhat reasonable to say that Hume’s belief in empiricism as the only form of truth would have one reasonably conclude that there are no absolute truths. The subjectivity of truth would be similar to the ideas of relativism displayed in postmodern thought (alike that of Wittgenstein, Feyerabend, Derrida etc.). Take for example Feyerabend who states, “the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths” –which ironically one can view as somewhat self-contradictory.
[2] Refer to Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy (IEP) “David Hume: Imagination”, Section 2(b) on “Inclusive Imagination vs. Memory” https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-ima/#SH2b . Also refer to Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding which notes that since “all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones”; we are restricted to “compounding, transporting, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience” (EHU 2.5/19). Refer to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a concise overview of Hume’s philosophy of the mind (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ ).
[3] Works of Love (International Kierkegaard Commentary) Vol. 16 pg. 118, edited by Robert L. Perkins, notes this was heard by Bernstein on a television biography entitled, “Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note,” written and directed by Susan Lacy, and produced for the series, for the series, “American Masters,” by WNET, New York, for the Educational Broadcasting Corp., 1998.
[4] See (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-metaphysics/#6 ), Section 1, “Background to Plato’s Metaphysics”. Or also Plato’s “The Republic” Translated by Benjamin Jowett for another example. Plato writes in a dialogue by his mentor Socrates regarding the ideal function of a city. The ideal city would adopt the Form of Justice. He writes, “we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find Justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier.”
[5] Newport cites from Dreyfus and Kelly’s “All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age” (2011)
[6] See “The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings” by Peter Kreeft (2005). C.S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien, writes that the appeal of Tolkien’s stories is because they reveal truths about the world. Specifically, Lewis writes that Tolkien’s work is a “radical instance of…sub-creation”; sub-creation in its ability to reveal the truth about “good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish, and our joys.” Per C.S. Lewis, in Time and Tide, August 14, 1954, and October 22, 1955.
[7] See Biblical references often cited for God’s renewing work in the world, REV 21:5; IS 43:19. REV 21:5 “Behold, I am making all things new.” Another great quote on God’s renewing work is from G.K. Chesterton, who writes, “it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” Chesterton’s observation is quite observant in the sense that as we age we often lose our sense of wonder, imagination, and in some ways creativity.
[8] More from David Wiley’s blog post “Tolkien on Sub-Creation” (https://authordavidwiley.wordpress.com/2016/07/04/tolkien-on-sub-creation/ ). See also Lecture series on “Themes in Lord of the Rings” by Ryan M. Reeves (PhD. Cambridge) for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwszMN-HLQU )