The Very Essence Of The Creative Is

Am I Living In A Way Which Is Deeply Satisfying To Me, And Which Truly Expresses Me?

The Action Of The Child Inventing A New Game With His Playmates; Einstein Formulating A Theory Of Relativity; The Housewife Devising A New Sauce For The Meat, A Young Author Writing His First Novel; All Of These Are In Terms Of Definition, Creative, And There Is No Attempt To Set Them In Some Order Of More Or Less Creative.

I Hear The Words, The Thoughts, The Feeling Tones, The Personal Meaning, Even The Meaning That Is Below The Conscious Intent Of The Speaker. Sometimes Too, In A Message Which Superficially Is Not Very Important, I Hear A Deep Human Cry That Lies Buried And Unknown Far Below The Surface Of The Person. So I Have Learned To Ask Myself, Can I Hear The Sounds And Sense The Shape Of This Other Person's Inner World? Can I Resonate To What He Is Saying So Deeply That I Sense The Meanings He Is Afraid Of, Yet Would Like To Communicate, As Well As Those He Knows?

The Genuinely Significant Creation, Whether An Idea, Or A Work Of Art, Or A Scientific Discovery, Is Most Likely To Be Seen At First As Erroneous, Bad, Or Foolish. Later It May Be Seen As Obvious, Something Self-evident To All. Only Still Later Does It Receive Its Final Evaluation As A Creative Contribution. It Seems Clear No Contemporary Mortal Can Satisfactorily Evaluate A Creative Product At The Time It Is Formed, And This Statement Is Increasingly True The Greater The Novelty Of The Creation.

There Is In Every Organism, At Whatever Level, An Underlying Flow Of Movement Toward Constructive Fulfillment Of Its Inherent Possibilities.