It is a bit hard to be creative today, with 3 levels of government trying very hard, to bash it & any spontaneity out of every one.

Like the young bloke, who's been told by Logan council that he is not permitted to continue with the restoration of his Ford GT in his garage, as he has been doing for over a year, without complaint of any neighbours.

They tell him it's OK for him to get a mobile mechanic to do it for him, but its a $100,000 fine if he does it himself. I suppose the mobile mechanic has payed a fee.

Like the bloke who has been told by another council he can't have glass doors onto a covered deck on the south western side [the side with the great view]of a home he wants to build. That would allow an hours heating by the setting sun & may make him run CO2 producing air conditioning. The fact he was prepared to install a blind doesn't count, nor the fact that he would plan to eat breakfasts & lunches out there, saving the running of aircon can not be considered.

Then you had better be careful of growing trees. If you do it, & sell those trees, off your 120 hectare property, with out paying a fee for the right permit, you will find yourself treated worse than an armed robber.

Be creative, you've got to be kidding.

Dear Poirot,

that's an excellent comparison of the peasant women and the women on the assembly line. I think of creativity as essentially a lonely act. Creative people may bounce ideas off each and may occasionally produce something together. However, I think of creativity as generally opposed to sociability.

You write: "I could be more creative - I tend to spend a little too much time thinking." I was under the impression that creativity proceeds from thinking. I watch my wife creating. She sits by herself. then she draws something or several somethings. then she puts it aside. Finally she makes a drawing that she uses as a pattern. My observation of her behaviour while creating is that she spends more time thinking about what she is going to do than doing what she is going to do. When she reads a book she may put it aside and think what comes next. that applies to both fiction and non-fiction. She was riding about theolution of Fermat's theorem before we went to bed. In the wee hours she woke me. "I think I have a proof of the theorem for n=3. She had a beautiful proof involving infinite series, and she has only had high school mathematics. She went to university, but when she went to be a nurse, teacher or librarian were the only choices for women. While she was attending a new course opened up - occupational therapy - so that is what she became.

Dear David.f,

You're right that we tend to think of creativity as a lonely act.
But when we look more closely, we often find that many of the great artists and writers tend to form little communes where they support each other and share ideas and inspiration.

In fact, I believe these cliques serve as incubators from which issue the distilled genius of the artist (or writer) and their experiences.
Think of the Impressionists or the Pre-Raphaelites as an example.

creative instinct is an oxymoron
instinct according to the survivalists is survival of the fat-test
fit-test..or whatever]

there was a guy who had an idea
some experiment he did for his students
his students took the idea demonstrated further
he demonstrated to the teacher that diods can transmit masive ammounts of info

thery are rushing the idea to market
[my idea built on this concept is how could this affect the mbn]
i could get creative and search the origonal story from dw tv..[where i heard the concept]

or even google it..[i cant network it being a loner]..and so the story finishes here

but there might be some one who reads this
and searches it and does something with it

but my instinct says no..[stop dreaming]

you wanted a reason to post info about it
and now you have passed it on

anyhow creation isnt an instinct
it is a focused effort

baskett weaving isnt mass production
its something to draw people together
to allow peers to be with peers[thats the instinct]
like herds with like

the 70's had great music because musitions
jammed with other musitions

the music died when each stopped sharing
i recall many art movements flourished when painters shared

or even poets reciting their latest creations..its not an instinct as such..but the result of instinctive ..need for recognition of our peers

but go ahead
ignore the loner

so desperit to please
simply trying to fit in
somewhere in this god forsaken reality

ya bullies
masses produce nuthin
but steal energy from those they outcast[ignore demean]through fearing ideas

Dear Poirot,

Take one dream. Dream it in detail. Put it into your own hands. See its final outcome clearly in your mind. Then mix it with a little effort and add a generous portion of self-discipline. Flavour it with a wholesome pinch of ambition. Stir briskly with confidence until the mixture becomes clear, the doubt separated from the resolution. Then bake at an even temperature in a moderate mind until the dream rises and is firm to the touch. Decorate with individuality. Cut into generous portions and serve with justifiable pride.

Approached in this manner, life is a piece of cake according to the
very creative writer, Bryce Courtenay.

As for me - I love creating short stories. To me words are the gift of imagination. I allow my ear to be my dictionary, while my eyes observe the details and my mind constructs the storylines. I learned
early in life that I wanted to be a storyteller and I love my words.
I can feel their colour and their textures. I can understand their
constraints. I know their weakness and am aware of their strengths
and I couldn't imagine being without books, or stories. Perhaps it is
because of my ancestry. As I wrote some time back, "I come from a tribe of nature worshippers, pantheists, believers in faeries, forest sprites, and wood nymphs. Who heard devils in their windmills, met them in the woods, cloven-hoofed and dapper gentlemen of the night..."

Creativity to me is a vital impulse existing since time immemorial. It's an intensely human desire and it clothes itself in various forms...

I try to create some chaos and drama on OLO. Does that count?

People create in different ways these days. They take photos and videos, they make android apps, they create totally fake online personas on Facebook, they create new religions (AGW).

So, base materials, well, should we all take up pottery? Would the potters of potterville have cared for their art if they could pop down to Big W? Would Michelangelo bother if he could use Photoshop or HDR technology or 3D studio Max.

Actually, the guys who wrote Photoshop Lightroom were damned creative.

I have a theory though about standardisation and 'best practise'. The result is stick thin models and Big Macs and McMansions.

The pursuit of uniformity is the real problem. There is a standard model size and shape ( A model being a person) and standard work-flow in computer image manipulation, standard clothes sizes for easier designing (With cheaper material costs for petite models on the cat walk . That women decide to worship fashion models yet blame men for anorexia and for the images in magazines that they buy is a side issue).

It's all about economics and reducing the 'bottom' line, by Our Ford. Huxley discussed all this, it's where we're headed. It's not all bad either.

'ending is better than mending'

So from this new philosophy, people specialise, and are 'creative' within economic boundaries. You just don't get allrounders like Michelangelo any more. We've become too smart for that. People watch Masterchef and The Block. They're into creating man. It's just the competition is so great these days, it's all been done. There is a limit to how many tunes you can make that actually sound good. We've worked out asthetics, design, even facial measurements of attractive people.

The second issue is insurance, and risk aversion. Society has become increasingly risk averse as there is more to lose, and we hear so much bad news.

Thirdly, a lot of the truly creative people have had the assistance of mind altering drugs. This seems to be discouraged these days.