What is creativity? 

I think everyone has a personal definition of creativity. Elizabeth Gilbert talked about the American poet Ruth Stone in her talk “A new way to think about creativity”. Ruth described feeling and hearing a poem coming at her as a thunderous train of air. It would come barreling down at her over the landscape, shaking the earth under her feet. What she would do is “run like hell” to the house whilst being chased by this poem, and then grab a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when the poem thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Sounds so hilarious!

For me, I daydream a lot. Haha, “daydream” has such a negative connotation. More accurately, I unconsciously delve into the hodgepodge that is my subconscious mind and view (and I think I really am just a passive observer of my thoughts) various snippets of random visual-verbal film. I think to some extent my conscious mind (my “self”) interprets these quasi-meaningful somethings and, I guess, sorts them into a-ha!, erm, or nah categories. The eureka moment happens then. I think I share other people’s experiences in that these creative moments come and go. They are like wisps in the wind. They are unsolicited guests, coming unannounced and then leaving, sometimes returning, often never.

In secondary school, I described the creative process as the book writing through me rather than me writing the book. It’s just a glib saying, not really grammatically correct. But nevertheless, in honesty, it captured what I feel, which is a compulsion to write - a phenomenon that can be hard to understand. Scientifically, I can explain the creative process as a collective expression of nerves and synapses, but it feels somewhat different... having qualities of being unscheduled and uncontrolled make the creative process seem as such an external activity.

I had someone recently tell me that I am a “business person”. And indeed, for the longest time I believed that business would be my future career.

Was it with regards for money? Admittedly yes, most of the world’s richest people are astute business people. Someone once said Asians who want to study overseas are pre-occupied with money. This resonated with me at the time. Who isn’t, at roots, seduced by the allure of money? It promises opportunities, power, and change – things everyone could use in their lives for whatever purposes.

But as time gave rise to experience, as I grew more knowledgeable about the field of business, I find that it is attractive as an avenue for creativity and innovation. I grew out of the materialist mindset. I think reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad stimulated a paradigm shift in my thinking about business. It invited notions of ideas, making creative changes. I knew I had the occasional brainwave, but I didn’t know I had to grab hold of it, that I could and have to direct it to achieve success.

Christians are often told the story of the Tree of Knowledge in the Book of Genesis, of how Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden because they ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge. I think immediately of how it must be used by Christian interests to suppress the innate curiosity of the religious masses. Growing up, when I heard the story, I subconsciously aligned myself against inquiry; the Singaporean education made it easier to do so by spoon-feeding answers and requiring rote-memorisation for academic success. There wasn't a place for creative or critical thinking. Nor would I, as a Christian youth, at the time want to. On the one hand, there is the much vaunted (supposedly) indubitable word of God from the infallible bible. On the other, there is the duplicitous lies of the Devil's advocate, connivers against the only truth. That is an extreme mindset, far removed from mainstream Christian beliefs.

Yes, it is a specious mindset. Basic logical reflection would reveal it to be a case of circular reasoning, unjustified. Yet, at the base of such beliefs are the much stronger, deeper emotional underpinnings. Years and years of being rooted in a community of people, traditions, and beliefs, would cause one to ally strongly with the religion that made it possible. Much of one's support network, social circle, and self identity rests in the religion. With so much at stake emotionally, is it any wonder that no logically approach to religion can resonate as deeply, intimately?

I have come full circle. From my initial predilection for words' and literatures' emotional appeal, my love for the fictional, I fled to the logical realm. Seeking certainty, reliability, (respectability?), I came into the mechanical, precise, eternally unchanging world of cold logic. From that extreme, I return midway to the familiar refuge of passionate emotions, coming into new understandings of how emotions, conscious and unconscious, can affect us in ways irrational.

Back to the Tree of Knowledge, I still ponder over the unofficial dichotomy put forth - knowledge or ignorance, truth or illusion. Is there a real tradeoff a la losing the Garden of Eden from eating the forbidden fruit - bliss from ignorance or unhappiness of knowing? Oftentimes, I observe that the more is known, the less the magic. The more reality sheds her mystery, the less she holds our interest.

The question is, if it comes down to it, would you choose blissful ignorance or unsatisfing truth?

I recently watched the anime Claymore after its recommendation by a friend. It is described as follows:

The series is set in a medieval like world where humans coexist with creatures called Yoma sentient monsters that feed on human innards, a nameless and highly secretive organization has created an order of half-human, half-yoma warriors to protect humans from the yoma, for a large fee. The people of this world have dubbed these warriors as "Claymores" based on their gargantuan, unsheathed swords, or the "Silver Eye Witches", based on their appearances and seemingly cold nature toward others.

Claymores are in danger of losing control of their powers if they activate more than 80% of their demon strength, changing them into a form of yoma called an "awakened being".

It is the oft-told tale of the demon-hunting warrior. The twist is the very act of demon-slaying causes the heroine to become more demon-like, and the more formidable the Yoma, the more the heroine has to call forth her Yoma powers. It is ironic that the protagonist can only defeat her antagonist by becoming more like the latter.

This is reflected in popular culture and history. In warcraft, Illidan Stormrage, a demon-hunter, combats demons through calling upon demonic powers. In Bleach, Ichigo Kurosaki fights "hollows", evil spirits, by partially becoming a "hollow".

Does this hint at a fundamental aspect of the nature of "good" and "evil"; that perhaps successful confrontation of "evil" requires some element of "evil", in order to be truly "good"? For instance, to preserve the virtue of fairness, sometimes vengeance is an appropriate response, to punish "evil" with "evil". It is such a natural reaction that to do otherwise invokes the uncomfortable bitterness of "injustice". The irony is the role reversal that happens when the act of "justice" is played; victim becomes aggressor and the circle is complete.