I was discussing creativity with a client of mine and it got me to thinking about how we nurture ideas like plants. Let me just start with two statements that I think are true:
- Humans are inherently creative
- Having ideas is a good thing
So first of all, there’s this kind of harmful myth that only certain people are creative. Those people are “artists” and they are fundamentally different than everyone else. Now, artistic talent (music, painting, poetry, etc.) is a skill that some people are going to be better at than others. Just like some of us are better at math and others at languages and others at fixing things. We are all different. But while artists may be creative, they aren’t the only ones that are. We all are! We all have the capacity to create things and those things come from the our ideas.
What we create (a business, a painting, a cookie, a garden, a blog post) depends on the ideas our particular mind generates. Different people, different minds, different ideas, different creations. While one individual creation can be better than another by whatever metric (a more beautiful garden, a tastier cookie, a more appealing painting) no kind of creation is any better or more worthy than another.
Now, having ideas is a good thing. When you are trying to solve a problem or mitigate a risk or create anything, it would be much harder if we couldn’t generate some ideas. Ideas are the seeds that we nurture into our creative pursuits.
But what about people who have a goal to be more creative? Are they misguided? Are they fooling themselves? No, because while we are all capable of creativity, creating is an action that we have to take and a practice that we can improve at. When a painter paints 100 paintings, they are going to end up with more paining skill, yes, but they are also going to end up being more creative (because they have just created 100 things). They are getting better at coming up with ideas and turning those ideas into their creations.
Now, there are lots of ways that an idea can go awry on it’s way to becoming a creation. Sometimes the idea is just not that good. It doesn’t work the way you expected or isn’t actually useful or beautiful or whatever you thought it would be. Sometimes the idea gets poorly executed. Like maybe you don’t have the skill to render what you see in your mind… yet. So you practice, but some idea are sacrificed to your practice. Maybe the idea is good, but not good for you or in line with your values or goals.
But sometimes the problem is more fundamental… with the generation of ideas themselves. And there are two ways this usually happens:
- You have no ideas — you are an idea desert
- You have too many ideas — you are an idea jungle
Both of these are a problem. The first is a bit more obvious. If you are an idea desert, then you can’t get ideas to germinate and can’t create things. But too many ideas can be a problem too! It can mean feeling overwhelmed with all the cool things you want to do and not getting any of them done, or being unable to decide which ideas are best for you to nurture and give attention to. In this case you are in an idea jungle.
Now, to be fair to both jungles and deserts, they are both beautiful and necessary and support diverse and complex ecosystems. My metaphor of the desert and jungle is supposed to help us be more effectively creative, not disparage actual landscapes. But if we want to plant and nurture ideas, that means creating a garden… and gardening techniques vary widely depending on your landscape.
I grew up in the desert southwest and now I live in the fecund Pacific Northwest (not quite a jungle, but still rainy and green). I’ve gardened in both places and the tools and techniques are very different. In the desert, you are always encouraging things to grow. You amend the soil, add water, and coax things. My garden now requires that I keep things from growing — pruning and thinning and removing unwanted plants so that the ones I’m after have room to develop. I need to know which plants are harmful and which are helpful so I know what to keep and what to get rid of.
If you are feeling like an idea desert, here are some things to try:
- Seek out beneficial amendments: What you germinate depends on the soil you plant it in, so fertilize the soil of your mind with beneficial things. Look for things that are uplifting, invigorating, exciting, thought-provoking. Also, consider organic rather than synthetic… real experience over simulated, analog over digital. You also need a balance of input that’s right for your particular soil. Ideas can come from things that are unpleasant — certainly government’s bad ideas have generate a ton of amazing political art. So I’m not being a Pollyanna here. But if you are over-amending with dark and negative and upsetting content (which is likely with the times we’re in and the tone of media and narrative currently), you are going to need to seek out balance. Whatever your ground, ideas need some nutrients to grow, so go forth and absorb some.
- Water: Water your little ideas with kindness. Sometimes we are so hard on ourselves and our little idea sprouts. We’ll go uprooting them or thinking terrible things about them (that’s stupid! that will never work!). Sure, some of ideas might not actually turn out great. But you’re not going to know if you keep killing them off before they have a chance. Those of us… you, I mean those of you with perfectionistic tendencies (lol, I mean us, totally) can be particularly bad about this. That little plant is crooked! Kill it! Cut yourself and your ideas a little slack. Even weird, stunted, and odd ideas can be awesome. They can grow in unexpected and exciting ways. Cactus are certainly different than, like, basil — but cactus are amazing out of the box living creatures. If you aren’t watering, you’re likely to get some prickly ideas, but regardless of the ideas, give them some love and forgive them and yourself for being imperfect.
- Provide shade: When I was a kid I was eating a store-bought peach in the garden. I went to toss the pit over the fence, but it fell among the herbs and germinated into a tiny tree. My dad wanted to pull it out. He argued that it was a hybrid that might not bear good fruit. But my mother insisted that he keep it because she could use the shade for her herbs. Now, those of you – like me – gardening in more temperate climates are like “shade! you can’t garden in the shade! you need full sun.” But in fact, in the desert where I grew up, adding some shade is needed to protect a lot of plants (especially leafy greens and herbs) from burning or bolting in the intense summer heat. I’d also like to point out that the peach tree grew large and lush and every year we harvested hundreds of giant, 16 oz peaches that were the best I’d ever had then or since. Giving your ideas a little protection from burning judgement and excessive observation is good for them and you and can also bear fruit where you don’t expect.
Maybe you’re lost in the idea jungle instead? Here’s are some suggestions:
- Learn more about what’s growing. If you are overwhelmed with so many ideas you don’t know where to start, you are going to have to figure out what they are. Are they native or invasive, vitamin packed or poisonous, will they grow into the things you need for your life or be the wrong thing in the wrong spot. You have to figure out what that tangle is before you can start to deal with it. One way to do that is a big brain dump. Put all your jumble of ideas on paper, in whatever form makes sense, and then start sorting and categorizing. Make a taxonomy of your ideas based on what you value and want to accomplish. You will start to see how certain ideas are more interesting, more exciting, more beneficial for the space you want to create in your life.
- Thin for optimal growth. You can’t do everything. I’m sorry, but you just can’t. There’s not enough time or energy in your life to do all the things. You have to thin back the things you can’t or don’t want to do. This is HARD. It’s hard in my actual garden, where I’m sad for the carrots that will never be, and it’s hard in the overgrown mental garden of ideas. Deciding what you want to do requires that you decide what you don’t want to do. Putting some ideas in a box labeled “free ideas” gives you space and room to grow the ideas you want. Your taxonomy should help you decide which ones to save and which to ditch. The good news is that unlike plants these ideas won’t die. They are like seeds that you save for later or trade or give away. If you ever need them you can pull them out and plant them, but until then they are dormant and not in your way.
- Don’t plant things you don’t want. I was at a literal plant talk the other day and the presenter (who is the educational and event coordinator for a local chain of green houses — coolest job ever) was joking that you put this plant in a pot and never let it come near the ground. Why? Because it will root and spread so enthusiastically that you’ll never be rid of it! It’s not invasive, just very, very happy to be here. In fact, I have some in my front yard, and it’s very enthusiastic… but that’s ok, because I have a lot of dry earth in my front that I want lush and green. But if it were in my veggie garden, I’d be less happy. Don’t plant new ideas that don’t serve you. The world is full of new thing to try and do and learn and be… which is great, but you have to pick and choose.
One last point to make… unlike real landscapes, your brain is much more flexible and can be both a desert and a jungle at different times. You might go through an idea drought and then later a flood, you might over prune and suddenly feel like the Sahara. You might spend a lot of time nurturing an idea only to have it die and you can’t think of another thing you want to grow for a while. Unhelpful ideas may pop up out of nowhere and choke out your garden. After all, ideas have us as much as we have them. This is how ideas flow through societies. A germinated idea will sow its wild oats into the wind and land in many mind gardens. What you do then however, is up to you.
For example, isolation is one idea that’s been spreading like congongrass, far beyond the places where it’s life supporting or health inducing (and I don’t just mean this last year, this has been an invasive idea for a while). But you can decide to root that idea out and cultivate connectedness instead (yes, even now… no, especially now) and when those ideas germinate share the seeds with others. Now that’s creation.
