Maybe creativity isn’t about talent, it’s about learning to see and listen.
This week, someone said to me, “I’m just not a creative person.”
I don’t think that’s true.
I get it though. We’ve been taught to think creativity is a gift, something only a few lucky people are born with.
But maybe it’s not about being gifted at all. Maybe it’s just about listening. About having your antenna up when the universe decides to whisper something interesting.
For me, those whispers usually show up in the shower.
Every morning, I always get one good idea in the shower. An idea that gets me excited.
My brain apparently runs on a combination of hot water, steam, and the acoustics of bad singing.
It’s the same every time: I’m standing there, minding my own business, when the universe drops something brilliant on me. Something world changing, or at least pretty good for before coffee.
Then I immediately go into a full-scale panic, trying desperately to remember it long enough to write it down.
Because if I don’t, it’ll vanish the moment I touch a towel.
My muse is basically a cat. It shows up when it feels like it, knocks something off the counter, and disappears before I can grab my phone.
As someone who’s been learning to paint recently, I’ve realised it’s less about the brushwork and more about learning to see.
Anyone can make a mark with a pencil. The hard part isn’t moving your hand, it’s training your eyes.
The best artists draw well because they see well. They notice what most people miss.
They see how light and dark carve up the world, how tonal values quietly hold everything together.
Once you start noticing that, you can’t unsee it.
It’s made me a better photographer too, because now I notice how light falls, how contrast tells a story.
It’s a bit like seeing into the Matrix. Once you notice the code underneath everything, the world never looks the same again.
Learning to see, to really see, is a beautiful thing, because the world starts to look more beautiful than you ever realised.
It’s like being reborn into a world that was always there, you just hadn’t noticed it yet.
Maybe creativity isn’t about making things up, but about learning to see what was there all along.
And it’s not just painting or photography.
Musicians talk about it too, that sense of catching something that’s already out there, waiting to be noticed.
Tom Waits says songs are floating around in the air and you just have to stick up your antenna and catch one before someone else does.
Paul McCartney said Yesterday came to him in a dream.
The poet Ruth Stone described it the same way. She said she could feel poems rushing toward her across the fields like a gust of wind, and she’d have to race to grab a pencil before the poem passed through her and moved on to someone else.
This makes creativity sound less like art and more like trying to tune an old radio with bad reception.
That idea isn’t new, though. People have been trying to explain inspiration for thousands of years.
The ancient Romans actually believed that inspiration came from outside you, a little spirit called a genius that did all the hard work while you focused on staying alive in sandals.
But somewhere along the way, we decided, “Nope, I’m the genius!”
Which was fine until we started blaming ourselves for every creative failure and awkward social post.
Maybe it would be better for our mental health if we stopped thinking we personally control the lightning.
Let’s give the muse the credit and the blame.
That way, when brilliance strikes mid conditioner, you can just nod and say, “Nice one, Muse,” and when it doesn’t, you can shrug and say, “My antenna must be clogged.”
Then rinse, repeat, and hope tomorrow’s shower has better reception.
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