The Infant Age of Structured Creativity !

Just imagine this scenario. An invading army is very close to our border and waiting for the right moment to strike and unleash their brutality on us. Supposing the weather is extremely cold and an important strategic soldier fails to be up and ready for the war. Think about the consequences in such a hostile & combative environment . The catastrophe will be immense and beyond the bounds of our wildest imagination. The chaos and pandemonium that surely ensues after such a lethargic portrayal of indiscipline will definitely create a frenzied furore across the length and breadth of the country.

It simply gives us the shivers when we merely imagine this hypothetically impossible situation and its possible potential ramifications. 

But, this is what is happening in real life due to lack of discipline and self restraint in our people. The gross misuse and abuse of freedom made me wonder as to whether the Britishers had done the right thing to give us our much needed independence in the first place.  Such is the appalling dearth of discipline in the country - be it the media with the reporting of their news, politicians who rule the country, eminent personalities and celebrities involving themselves in scandals and the list can forever go on in the upper echelons. Coming to the next strata of population that occupies the vast majority of our motherland , even we are not disciplined. Right from simple adherence of traffic rules to payment of taxes, loyalty to our spouses, sincerity in our work  - the list can again continuously go on - we not only misemploy our freedom but we exploit it to our undue advantage without giving much heed and forethought to the consequences of our actions. For instance, if the old man hadn't come in the wrong direction then I wouldn't have had the accident in the first place and sustained the painful injuries which I am suffering now. What if I had died in the accident!! I wouldn't have been able to hear his apology also or write this blog now. That small act of his indiscipline cost me an arm and leg - literally and metaphorically. Even in my workplace, I had requested my boss to grant me the privileges to access Youtube for my Market Intelligence report. One of my colleague comes cooly and asks me to open Youtube for watching some trailers and comedies!!  I had to calmly tell them that "I have work to do. There is a proper place and time to watch those videos. Please watch it in your home". These are just simple and sample real life scenarios. I am sure even you would have encountered such normal and wild acts of indiscipline in your life too.

I understand that people cannot be military-like over night. But, there is a certain permissible level of indiscipline that is acceptable like keeping ones room untidy, not shaving, not grooming oneself properly etc as the net effect is only for the concerned individual. In my opinion even those things can be improved. But, this kind of indiscipline is much better than the kinds that harms other individual and public property.

When confronted with being undisciplined, some carried the belief that creativity should stem from being completely free and unbound to restrictions and that disciplined people are too structured and systematic in their way of life. In a way, they have a point. But once when it comes to creating a compelling and persuasive message that needs to be shared across to a particular group, the use of creativity in such a situation cannot be employed to build castles in the air. Rather, the creativity must be tuned and be given a proper shape and structure so that the intended point reaches out to the target audience so that they appreciate the crux of the message in a better light.

Being creative for the sake of creative to be different from others does not add much sense to the people any more. The huge difference lies in the way we are being creative so that our creative ideas are meaningful and adds value to others thereby enriching their lives. This makes our creativity to be more purposeful thereby making a difference in this world. This is precisely what Steve Jobs did with his more than successful ipods or iphones. He radically innovated on the existing walkmans or mobile phones to create a simple and simply dashing and dazzling ipods and iphones that the consumers cherished to have it as their prized possessions.

Structured creativity is also a type of creativity that must be judiciously used depending on the circumstances. But even for this type of creativity to develop, grow, prosper and flourish, a congenial, conducive and the correct environment should be laid out as a fundamental platform for an individual to explore and tap into their infinite creativity.

Let me just give an example to illustrate this point further. Supposing someone asks me " I want a car under sub 4m". I can come up with a wild and ground-breaking idea of a double decker car with 6 wheels and doors opening only from one side. But, the feasibility of this idea might take a hit when this creative idea is to be implemented in reality. On the other hand, if some one tells "I want a normal car under sub 4m with new features that can be practically implemented". Then again, we need to have a proper feasibility study of our fresh, new features but at least the scope of our creative thinking can be very focussed and targeted to reach our objective efficiently and effectively.

Ultimately, the context defines and mandates how wild our creativity should be for a particular situation. When we are writing a novel , then we must be highly creative and put in all our visualization process into the big picture to have the perfect novel, infused and peppered with facts and history, if necessary, like the way Dan Brown does in his books or it can be truly creative like the way JRR Tolkien created a new land, history, species and language in his "LOTR" trilogy.

Whether this blog is a result of structured creativity or the result of an untamed creative idea that eventually became so organized and methodical, I leave it to you.