Introduction to creativity

The type argument

It is widely believed that creativity is something people are either born with or without. It is assumed that there are creative types of people and, accordingly, uncreative types.

This belief may be comforting to some, because the question of creativity or lack thereof is then not a question of ability, but rather like the question of what color your eyes are, something you cannot change anyway. And so I suspect that many people consciously or unconsciously think, “I'm just not the creative type,” and leave it at that.

But if we look at it honestly, it's a very strange assumption:

Examples:

If someone can speak French but you can't, would you confidently conclude that you're not cut out for it? No. Because you know that languages can be learned.

If someone can do a backflip but you can't, would you conclude that you're not cut out for it? No, because you know that parkour can be learned. (But strangely enough, this is something that people sometimes assume about parkour in general. Who hasn't heard comments like, “It's so cool what you do... but I could never do that, I'd break all my bones.” This example shows that the “type argument” is very common, even in cases like this where it's perfectly clear that parkour is a learnable skill).

In all of the above examples, one would say no, but when it comes to creativity, for some reason it seems much easier to accept the “type argument.”

And I think that's not surprising, because creativity is simply not understood. It's a vague, undefined, mysterious subject. No one can say exactly what it is, and most creative people themselves can't even explain what they have or how it works. So it's easiest to conclude, “It's a gift from heaven.”

Yes, but that's a matter of hardware.

Another argument in favor of this conclusion is that creativity is often seen as a matter of hardware. But even if that were the case, does it prove that it cannot be learned or improved? Not at all. Just as someone who is naturally good at jumping does not prove that others cannot train and improve their own jumping ability.

A bold assumption

And so I would say: The assumption that there are “creative” and “uncreative” types of people is a very bold assumption, and it is usually based on nothing more than personal experience:

“Oh, this person can do something I can't, so I must be incapable of doing it.”

I don't think there's more to it than that. It's like when people who don't do parkour see parkour people doing something “crazy” on the internet—they just don't know how the process behind it works and that it's not crazy at all. The process that leads to a creative result isn't visible either, so we assume something that may not be true at all. And what makes matters worse is that, as I said before, even the creative people themselves aren't able to tell you what's going on.

Another assumption

Now I would like to make another assumption:

That creativity is a skill that can be learned and trained. Of course, I will try to back up my claim with arguments. But this assumption alone—even if I am right—is not enough.

But before we even begin to really address the topic, we first need to be clear about what we are talking about. Because even though we use the word “creativity” frequently, it seems to be a rather vague, multi-layered concept.

So before we get more specific, I would like to start with a definition of creativity.

Before we really get started, I would like to say one thing in advance:

I have seen parkour practitioners who, in my opinion, have become more creative over the years—and others who were creative at first and then became less and less so. What happened here? Did they change their type of being?

For me, it's crystal clear: there is a rule for creativity. It can be understood, learned, and practiced—just like any other skill.

Definition of creativity

What are we actually talking about when we say “creativity”? What do others say?

Wikipedia says:

Creativity is the ability to use one's imagination to create new and valuable ideas or works. It can also describe the ability to find new solutions to problems or new methods for achieving a goal.

Psychology professor Michael Mumford writes:

“We seem to have generally agreed that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products.”

Oxford Languages defines it as:

“The ability to produce original and unusual ideas or to create something new or imaginative.”

Definitions of creativity may vary, but one theme runs through them all:

novelty

Note: Some people define creativity solely on the basis of the word “create” and conclude that making things is already a creative act. ... like baking bread in the oven. Yes, the bread wasn't there at the beginning and then it is there, so you have “created” it, but conceptually it is nothing new. Of course, you can define creativity that way, but then it becomes a very general word that can be used for many actions, and thus it loses its meaning. But the creativity we are talking about here is the definition that includes the aspect of novelty.

So, creativity is the ability to create something new. But I would like to add something else: since you can stumble upon something new by chance from time to time, that doesn't really make you creative. You are only truly creative if you can repeat the “trick,” if you can produce something new over and over again.

So my definition would be something like this:

--> Creativity is the ability to constantly discover things that were previously unknown (to oneself).

I explicitly add “to oneself” because I believe that discovering something for oneself is still creative—even if others have already found it. If you didn't know about it, you would be just as creative, I would say.

And then there is another level of depth to creativity. You can find endless new details and nuances within an already familiar framework, or you can find something so fundamentally new that it changes the whole game and opens up a new framework. Quantum physics, for example, was such a fundamental change in physics that it turned everything upside down. Or take parkour as an example: once off-axis flips were introduced, it was easier to just add more. But introducing off-axis flips in the first place was a bigger creative moment.

So maybe we can talk about “small creativity” and “big creativity,” depending on how big the box was that was broken.

A fundamental prerequisite for creativity

Creativity therefore has to do with a kind of novelty. Creative activity leads to the discovery of something previously unknown. But in order to be capable of this, the activity must be structured in a certain way—designed in such a way that it enables discoveries to be made.

And there is a fundamental prerequisite for this type of activity:

the simple realization that there are things to be discovered.

This may sound obvious, even trivial. But it is not. How widespread is the mentality in parkour, for example, of changing spots too quickly because you've “already done everything”? Or that spots become boring after a few years? But the problem is this:

You assume that you've already seen all the possibilities.

I bet you could limit yourself to ten moves throughout your entire parkour career—and still never stop inventing something new. There are good examples of this in the scene.

A brief side note:

In parkour, creativity is often seen only on a mechanical level. Who is considered creative? Those who invent new tricks. But “novelty” is not limited to mechanics. You can be inventive at every level of parkour—from the construction of lines to the choice of spots to the flow of movement, the shapes, the tempo, the angles, the emotional tone, and much more.

Creativity and ignorance – opposite starting points

Creativity therefore begins with the fundamental realization:

“There are endless new possibilities here, even if I can't see a single one at the moment.”

So there is an expectation of seeing something new. Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of ignorance, which says:

“There are no other possibilities. I've seen everything. I know everything.”

Ignorance here doesn't just mean “not knowing” – it means assuming you know something when you actually don't.

So when you say you've done everything that can be done in a spot, isn't that just ignorance?

Am I saying that uncreative people are generally ignorant?

No, of course not! You can be creative in one area and uncreative in another. You can be a brilliant physicist who finds new questions in his field—and still be stuck in a rut in the rest of his life.

But I would like to point out the following:

Ignorance and creativity have fundamentally opposite starting points. This is true in every field. It's not rocket science. This dynamic can be observed everywhere:

A mind that assumes it knows everything is blind to new things.

An open mind that knows it doesn't know everything is the only one capable of recognizing new perspectives.

This alone has revealed a very simple rule about creativity—and the topic becomes a little clearer.

The first rule of creativity, applied to creativity

1.) We have just characterized the starting point of ignorance as:

Assuming that you know something when you really have no idea.

2.) And the starting point of creativity as:

There is probably something I don't know yet—and maybe I can discover something new.

If creativity is a mystery to you, how can you assume that you are not capable of it, if you don't know what it is or how it works? Isn't that starting point 1? Yes, I would say so.

So, the belief that “creativity is a mysterious gift for special people. There are creative and uncreative types”—it is precisely this belief that prevents you from learning anything about creativity at all. It prevents you from exploring the subject in a constructive way—just as you would with anything else you want to learn!

By the way:

Even if creativity is a skill (and I believe it definitely is) and some people are more naturally creative than others, there's no reason to be ashamed if you're not creative yet. Just as you wouldn't say:

“Oh, I'm so stupid—I wasn't born with the ability to do a cork.”

You had to practice the cork, or lazy, or whatever. And if creativity doesn't come easily to you, that's okay too. You can start working on it—and see if you make progress.

Creativity series

The subject of creativity is too big to cover in one or two articles. So there will be a whole creativity series on it. The articles should not be seen to stand alone, but read together with all the others I guess.