Several years ago, I went to visit one of my oldest and dearest friends who lives on the island of Bali. When I noted that everyone on the island seemed to paint, or carve wood, or dye fabric, she explained that, in Balinese culture, being an artist isn’t considered a distinct career path that some people pursue and some don’t. “It isn’t like in the States,” she explained. “Here, everyone is an artist.”
But I know firsthand that there are people in the United States who live this way; I’ve seen them. In this mini-society, everyone is creative, everyone is a painter, a builder and a storyteller. I thought I could learn a lot from this subculture, so I went to talk to the preschool children at Sunnyside Child Care.
I had planned to observe the children engaged in creative activities — perhaps building with blocks or painting. Unfortunately, my arrival coincided with snacktime. I found myself seated at a table while four children nibbled Cheerios and spooned up applesauce. I wasn’t really sure what to do; this wasn’t what I had expected. Every child had a laminated name card that they had decorated themselves.
Desperate for a “creative” topic, I asked about that. “What were you thinking when you drew this?” I asked a girl with a particularly colorful card. I pointed to a square with four legs sticking from the side. “That is a spiderweb,” she said. “And what about this?” I asked, pointing to a row of stamped birdhouses. She eyed me coolly. “Those are stamps.” Hm. This wasn’t really delivering the mind-blowing creative insight I’d been hoping for.
Another girl held out her card, eager to show me the stamps she had used. As she waved the card, the laminated paper made a quivering “wibbywibby” sound. The drawing completely forgotten, she flapped the card, watching and listening closely. Wibbywibby. She smiled at me and waved harder. A moment later everyone was waving their cards. Wibbywibbywibby! sang the laminated paper chorus. “We’re making music,” I said, wondering if this was relevant to creativity.
A moment later, the boy to my left announced, “My lips are stuck together!” He had a Cheerio between his lips. “Is the Cheerio sticking them together?” I asked. “Yes!” he said, delighted. “How did you do it?” I asked. “I wet it with my tongue,” he explained. The little boy to my right licked his finger and touched a Cheerio, which stuck to his finger. Then he stuck one Cheerio to another, then another. When he had four stuck together between his fingers, he announced that it was a “pinchy sandwich.” The fourth child, a girl, did the same thing and called it a tower right before she gobbled it up. “Have you ever eaten a tower before?” I asked her, and she laughed.
I had hoped to catch the children in the midst of a creative activity … and I had. Because when you are deeply, actively engaged in exploring your surroundings, you notice things. You notice that a placemat can make a sound. You notice that Cheerios can be used as building blocks. And — as one of the children pointed out — if you get them all wet in your mouth, you can even mush them all up, so perhaps they could be used as mortar, too.
When I teach, I often remind writers that unexpected details are the way we engage readers. “The fog came in on little cat feet,” Carl Sandburg wrote, and at once we grasp the quiet, fluid movement of the rolling mist.
Creativity is imagining or using things in new ways that are effective. In other words, one might say the fog, “zigzagged like a drunken daffodil,” but that doesn’t mean anything and is therefore “unique” but not “effective.” Sticking Cheerios together with saliva is a new idea, and it certainly works. To have an insight like this one, we have to be paying attention, observing and noticing.
As my friend had said, everyone is an artist. All it takes is what Buddhists call “beginner’s mind,” an attitude of curiosity and openness that leads to discovery. Suzuki Roshi famously said, “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s, there are few.” I have been a “creative” person all of my life. But I am realizing that in order to learn about creativity, I must go back to the beginning.
This, then, is part of my Creativity Prescription. Observe things, explore them, and find new ways to use them. Think about how amazing and fantastic they are. Everything is amazing if we allow it to be.
Lisa Papademetriou is a writer and the founder of Bookflow.pub, a tool designed to help writers improve motivation and organization.