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So you tried writing, and decided that Pushkin did it better. So why bother, Right?
So you sat looking at that blank canvas for hours, dropped some colour on it, stepped back and - heck, Picasso at 8 could and did better. So why bother, right?
You don't write like Pound, or Shelley, or Nâzım Hikmet, or Saul Bellow. Neither did any one of those, write like anyone else. They tried hard not to.
Creativity is your answer to the inner quest that wishes to be distinguished, not distinct.
Never try to find yourself in the works of others, shape your creativity through your own words, your own paintings, your own vision.
Don't listen to academics, policy-makers or art- educators who feel the need to deploy a range of claims about creativity yet all they are doing is being creative about creativity, trying to convince you that they know better, that you should shy away and shut up.
Well, don’t shut up!
Don’t abide by any one’s opinion about the Elysian Fields where only the gifted and talented are allowed to roam.
Do you know that John Carver’s short stories were refused by some twenty publishers?
Do you know that Beethoven was booed and whistled at the premiere of the fifth?
Just allow yourself to be yourself, distil your senses until they shine more than any sun, allow your vision to reflect your inner reality into lines, colours, rhymes, rhythms, or just hums…
Don't hold back. Let loose your creativity – You have it. We all do.
I remember my son's first complete sentence (he was 30 months old): “Look, Dad, the sun is going to sleep and covers itself with clouds.” Many years of schooling, uprooted that wonderful creator.
A son of a friend, when asked why he jumps over water puddles, answered: “because they eat up the tallest buildings'”
Never mind what you said as a toddler, blank out the years of demagogic education that always knew better than you what was important; allow that miraculous mirror - your dynamic mind -- to reflect what it sees hidden.
Don't wait until life gets out of the way. Just do it!
Let go, share your creative self through your poetry, your art, your photography or in any other form.
Want your peers' comment? Fine! You don't? Just say so, and only our editors will see them.
Enjoy.