On Spontaneity and Creativity

The word 'creativity' holds prime importance in my life. For several reasons. The first being my upbringing. I've been brought up in an environment where nuggets of creativity were scattered all across my senses. From writers to painters, from musicians to shayars, from thinkers to readers; they all seemed to be linked to my life through my father in some way or the other.

Exposure, that's what I've got, despite hailing from a small city of a small state. All of these little reverberations left an irreplaceable impression in my mind. The impression that 'creativity lies in spontaneity'. The memories of jugalbandi, where my Dad used to sing and the instrumentalists played music that came straight through their hearts rendering a captivating symphony, whirls my soul every time I think about it. My father didn't instruct them what to play and when to play. Everything that happened was spontaneous and melodious. Coordination seemed to be in their veins. I, sitting with my little legs crossed, enjoyed everything with rapt attention. I didn't realize that listening music can gift you with a sense of music, which I realized much later when it came to the instruments. I found a sudden connection with them.

But then I came to Delhi. Here, the multitudinous of creative souls appealed to my heart. I found great number of them. But later I found that half of them were machine-like. They lacked spontaneity. They could do great things with great many things, but their motivation for doing that thing was not the joy of doing that thing, but rather the joy in anticipation of getting the result out of what they did. It was not something that I knew.

I accepted it. I tried to emulate them, imitating their ideologies and work-motive but found out that it was not being me. I consider myself a creative person, despite being a beginner in the vast arena of creativity. But, I can't be creative when forced. I can't carry on the creative work to the best of my ability if there's some result-oriented motive behind it. If you ask me to write a story to win a competition, I can assure you that I would miserably suck at the work, precisely because it's not my spontaneous self doing the work. But, if I write a story because I want to write, because my self feels for the theme of the story, it's the same me who will assure you that it will be outstanding. For me, spontaneity is the key to creativity.

I worked with other people in music and though I learnt a lot, but I found spontaneity missing. Thereafter, I secluded myself, into a creative domain which was one man's play, where it's only me and my imagination that plays the key-role. Writing, photography and composition. It was fun, since spontaneity came bubbling forward and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Though with time, I've learnt how to make myself deliver an optimum performance for some creative job assigned to me, the result might not be outstanding, but nevertheless, it would be satisfactory. Satisfactory enough to be called good.

P.S. Synergy is when my heart and soul connects with what I'm doing. And for me, spontaneity is what brings synergy.