Creativity’s shove of necessity

Creativity requires triangulation. And triangulation requires a shove. Lemme explain.

I’ll try to learn how to add a drawing here, but for now: Envision a lovely three-dot triangle. The first, say, lower left dot is you.

The third dot, the pretty one at the top, is creativity itself. Lookit how shiny!

What’s missing?

The missing piece to get you to that third layer is the boring, lonely second dot on the lower right hand side. Maybe it’s even a long, drudgery-inducing isosceles triangle (ugh). The second dot/corner is the invisible barrier that stands in the way of 99.9% of people’s creativity. It’s almost always painful, embarrassing or challenging in some way (unless you’re a sociopath or lack empathy; I sometimes envy how easy creativity is for those folks). And, it requires an often uncomfortable shove — once you untie the ropes from your corner and cut yourself free to bounce around until you bump into it.

Be willing to …

If you wanna be creative, you must be willing to withstand some discomfort, or challenge. Or being willing to look silly or stupid. Or … who knows?

No one knows what the second corner will bring, besides the pain and discomfort of being shoved. Who enjoys being shoved?

But, for creativity, the shove is necessary. My great-uncle Ernie Fraze didn’t invent the pop-top can for fun. He invented it after struggling with the shove of being at a family picnic without a church key. (The shove of creativity doesn’t have to be all that profound or deep; sometimes you just want a Coke.)

The shove

The shove from the second corner is a trickster. That it’s a triangle means you can’t see it standing in your way. Creativity isn’t linear, nor is its barriers. The shove will hide forever, until you embrace it or elicit it in some way. But without the shove of that second corner, you’ll never be able to draw the entire triangle.