The more we consume, the less we create.
Whilst having a coffee, I had an interesting conversation with a friend about creativity and consumption, where we were talking about the changes in entertainment. I am a firm believer in the "If you want them to be intelligent, read them fairy tales" approach. And as I have said before, it isn't in the fairy tale itself, it is in the need to use the imagination to create what doesn't exist. However today, there is too much "reality" in entertainment.
My friend was talking about rewatching a movie recently, The Rock, with Nicholas Cage and how he remembered it being better than it was, even though he knew it wasn't a great movie. And I think that if we were to rewatch many of the movies of the past it would be much the same, that there are too many pieces that we are unable to suspend our disbelief for. And after talking for a bit he realised that this is true, that these days, he expects a movie to be realistic.
Just imagine that women used to faint at horror movies in the 1930s, despite them being unrealistic. This is because they were able to close the gaps of their disbelief using their imagination with such force, they were able to feel the reality. Nowadays, with all the graphics, all the sound effects, all the polish, there is no need for the viewer to create anything. Instead, rather than closing the gaps to make it more realistic, they are looking for any flaws to break the realism.
I believe that we are generally becoming far less creative as a species, because we have so much content filling our awareness and that content is so full, it doesn't require us to think at all. All the sights, sounds and story are there, leaving no gaps for us to fill. And when there are no gaps, we needn't imagine, we needn't build an internal mind's eye world, nor do we need to consider any answers.
All the answers are provided.
And it isn't only in entertainment that this happens, but in pretty much all aspects of life. When we see an actor that we recognise but can't remember the name or where from, rather than thinking, we turn to a database search. When we don't know the answer to anything, rather than trying to discover a solution for ourselves, we search again to find an already created answer. No need to problem-solve, no need to recall, no need to create anything for ourselves.
Creativity needs to answer a question of some kind, but if the answer is supplied before we do our own work, take our own journey, we aren't the ones creating the solution. We are just repeaters of what already exists. And I would posit that a lot of people today do very little creative work themselves and are instead just parroting what they have consumed elsewhere. A lot of people are losing their ability to be interesting or funny for instance, without using some reference to something else they have consumed; A meme, a quote, a line from a movie. Their personality is not theirs, but a kind of "auto-response" based on a prompt.
A plagiarised persona.
And many people these days aren't able to create anything new, anything thoughtful, but rather, they talk about the facts and situations they have experienced, without any more added to it. A review of a movie, a reiteration of an article, the mention of some situation they experienced on social media.
It is dilution of content, rather than development of content.
I suspect that most people won't really understand what I mean by that, and most will not do the work to understand. But, that is the condition of culture today, where understanding doesn't actually matter, because it isn't required. Why understand when answers are provided? Why learn a skill when a machine can do the work instead? Why create, when there is no need?
And it is the last point that is salient, because most people feel they no longer have the need to create, because everything they need is conveniently provided for them. They don't want to learn, when a machine can do it better, faster, cheaper. They don't want to innovate, when there are already answers good enough available.
We are no longer curious enough to ask the question.
We are looking for the easiest answer, not the best solution. We don't want to put in the effort, take the risks, try to do something that might fail. We don't want to use our brain power to think, when the answers are there at our fingertips. It is like using the answers at the back of a math book to complete homework - much faster, far easier, but we will fail the exam because having the answer, doesn't mean we understand the question.
And understanding the questions, understanding the problems, is what gives us the need to find a solution. Because if we don't understand the problem, then we can remain ignorant and despite being affected, not even realise there is a problem at all. And when we are ignorant, we needn't create, because there is no trigger to become creative. And instead, rather than fill our awareness up with problems we don't understand, we fill it up with content that gives us all the answers.
I suspect that people barely think these days.
Really take note of your experience over the next few days and consider how much you truly create in your imagination and how much is just the dull buzz coming from passive consumption. Sit in front of movie or a series and take note. Go for a walk in nature and take note. Sit in a room in silence and take note.
Listen to your thoughts.
We can fill ourselves up with full content, or we can fill our lives with thoughtful experience. They are not the same thing. To be creative we need the mental space to create, but if we are filling that space up with content that doesn't require us to think, doesn't question our world and drive our thoughts to build a solution, it is just filler. An insulation layer that stops us from touching our innate creativity.
To be creative, we need to first make room.
Taraz
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