Creative Aliveness: Turning Life Into a Creative Adventure

As Flora Bowley wrote in her book The Art of Aliveness: “Creative adventures can be as messy or involved as you choose, but they don’t need to be fancy, groundbreaking, or even take a lot of time to be valid and effective.

the concept of “natural creativity” was prevalent for many centuries in the Eastern world. For instance, the Book of Changes states that yin-yang movements — how yin and yang mutually change from one to the other — create everything.

By injecting creativity into the way we navigate the world, approach our tasks, and nurture our relationships, we can live a more fulfilled, exciting life.

It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that the concept of individual creativity started to emerge. Instead of emanating from divine forces, creativity started to be considered a human ability, which led to many innovations in science and technology.

Consider each interaction as a creative playground. Let creativity permeate each moment of your life, whether you interact with a person, a piece of content, or a problem you want to solve. How can you approach this interaction differently? How can you inject some randomness into the interaction?

A creative mind is: 1. Connected. Creative aliveness requires inspiration, which can take many forms. A creative mind is connected to people who stimulate their imagination, to networks that foster collaboration, and to sources of content that provide them with interesting information.

2. Curious. Asking questions is one of the best ways to live a c... See more

Make space for unstructured creativity. You don’t need to create something useful or beautiful. You could doodle while watching your favorite TV show or imagine alternative endings to a novel you just read. In fact, you don’t need to produce anything at all.

Creative aliveness consists in reclaiming a larger creative canvas woven into the fabric of our lives. It starts by asking yourself: what makes you come alive creatively? And how can you inject more creativity into your daily life?

In the Western world, creativity was for a very long time considered the realm of divinities. Whether they received the... See more

“creativity is also viewed as a property that belongs not only to a select few; everybody can exercise it. And its exercise can occur within the mundane experiences of life, not just in the formulation of significant scientific, artistic, or other achievements.”