“I’m Just Not Feeling Creative Today.” Meh. There’s Creative Inspiration Everywhere — If We’re Paying Attention

Today, I am wrung out.

I’m exhausted from a donor visit to my NGO. Not from the visit itself — it’s the anticipation and anxiety that wore me out. Plus the ninety minutes of traffic to get home.

If creativity is a gas, my tank is well past E.

I was pretty sure this was going to be the day I had nothing to say about creativity.

And yet, crashed on the couch with my laptop on my stomach, I realise the day was filled with creativity. It was everywhere I looked and in everything I shared with our visitors:

• On the murals along the walls in Trench Town, celebrating its strong music culture.
• In the Edusport games our coach played with the kids — turning traditional Jamaican games into activities that teach literacy, numeracy, teamwork and communication.
• In the boxing and taekwondo sessions our coaches now lead — revamped to allow for COVID protocols. (How do you teach combat sports in a pandemic? Creatively, of course!)
• In the materials our psychologist and parent facilitators have created together: parenting BINGO cards that allow parents to play together and learn about positive parenting. And flash cards that use simple pictures and messages to spark conversations between parents and children.
• As we were leaving, our photographer shared some of the images he’d captured. Brilliant images of moments I had missed, even though I was standing right there.

And that made me think of all the creativity that I miss every day and how easy it is for all of us to miss other people’s creativity and our own.

In her brilliant new book, How Creativity Rules the World, Maria Brito argues, “When we find ourselves with limited resources, when we confront harsh conditions, or need to figure out how to react to difficulty, creativity thrives.”

I’m grateful I get to spend my days with a team that use its enormous creativity for good.

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