Creativity

The antithesis of creativity is the fear of failure. Failure to not please others. Failure to not meet a standard or goal. The fears are endless, but in reality the only measure of creativity should be how a work represents you in a given medium. So if everyone is creative in their own right, then why do we constantly distinguish between the creative and uncreative?

Breaking out of the mold

For a long time I viewed myself as uncreative purely based on comments from my peers on whether I could draw, design, etc. I grew up with the constant notion of creativity as a level of artistic skill. There were those that had it, and those that didn’t. So I never really thought about creating anything. I believed I didn’t have the creativity to make something meaningful. Something people could view as creative and admirable. In other words, I thought I couldn’t succeed. That all I could do was fail.

The first step in creativity is realizing you are creative in your own right. That the expression is what matters. It doesn’t mean you’ll change lives. It doesn’t mean everyone will love what you do. But when you’re truly out there expressing your creativity, you’re creating something only you would choose to do. Something undeniably unique to you.

I know there are those that would disagree. Those that would pull up countless examples of regurgitated or similar work and say that’s uncreative. They may be even be right for some of those examples, but I believe the quirks of every individual shine in their own self expression and that’s what matters. Little details that come out when they choose to express their creativity that snowball after deciding not to chase the standards of creativity that other people set.

For me, that is what cooking is and has always been. Cooking was what freed me from my own self-perception of being uncreative. It’s what led me to explore my creativity by writing and even some other things. For whatever reason, I never hesitated to express myself by changing a recipe or creating my own dish. I created whatever came to mind. I created what I wanted. My creations were mine and I enjoyed it for what it was. Luckily, other people did too and so I realized I was creative. Except in reality I always was and you are too.

Expressing Yourself

I think its important to distinguish that being creative may have nothing to do with whether people like what you create. There is some pattern to what people like based on where you live, time, etc. and its fine if people around you don’t care for what you do. The most important thing is to create what you want and then, if you feel inclined to do so, there’s an endless amount of ways to reach others with that weird and magical thing we call the internet.

All it takes is browsing channels on YouTube to see the broad range of human creativity and interests. People often like to generalize what people will end up loving or hating, but there’s some weirdly popular stuff out there. Many people might swear against them as it doesn’t adhere to the formulas/quality of success content (I love this channel by the way, but I doubt many would bet on its success) that you see in many big time TV shows.

Formulas aren’t creative. The process of creating one might be, but definitely not once it is used repeatedly. In fact, its kind of the opposite. Its filtering your thoughts into a predefined way of thinking. Its a focus on the standard of success, and with the opportunity of success comes the chance of failure.

Just like how videos exist to cover a wide range of interests and tastes free from predefined formulas, food should always do the same. A world where everyone cooks the same thing (a.k.a. recipes) would be hell and I don’t understand the obsession with right or wrong in cooking. It is exactly like how some people group others as creative and uncreative. I always tell people the best way to cook is to cook what you want.

Creating a dish should be about what you want

Let’s suppose a situation where you want to prepare dish A for your family or friends. You could follow recipe X, but whose to stop you from adding your own flair or taking your own risks. Maybe you like spicy food and the recipe isn’t spicy, so you add some spice. It may not always work and I may be part of the minority when I say this, but I find a conversation about the things you tried more interesting than the recipe that you followed.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to follow a recipe just because you want to eat something without having to think much. There is everything wrong with feeling like you can’t try to make something just because you don’t know the right way to do it. Remember there is almost always more than one way to do things. And if there isn’t, then I guess you were just creative enough to create something new.

You may not get what you want the first time. You may not even get it after five times. But focus on what you want to eat and I guarantee that you’ll enjoy the process and eventually the result. A result that will be unique to you. This is because you dictate what you like and no one can take that away from you. It’s because you have your own creativity. There is no replacement for your unique perspective and using that will always result in a creation unique to you. That is unless you post the recipe and everyone follows it religiously. The irony of it all.