Creativity cannot be a machine

Originally posted on my graphic novel site in November 2013.

Creativity cannot be a machine

You may have noticed the subtitle to this book: The Creativity Machine. You may already know a lot about the process, and you may have said, “Creativity can’t be made in a machine!”

But you continue reading, so you must have been snagged by the idea. Can creativity be easier than you think?

There are many myths about creativity. One is that it is exclusive, that some have it and some don’t. This is one of the things I am making this book to reject. Uendyr doesn’t even seem to be acting creatively in the beginning, and a robot is certainly not a new idea. Neither is virtual reality, or an island of dreams, or crabs, ships, ghosts or cats. The point isn’t that every detail is new, it is the way you mix it. Creativity is a lifestyle, a way of thinking, including gathering what you already have and know, then deliberately changing it.

So, it’s not that the machine is creative, it is that within the mind of the operator processing details with the machine, there is a determination to find new things in the mix. Take out that part of the activity, and you have a simple production process, used to take raw materials and follow a process to make it into something. Any robot can strictly follow a process. This robot isn’t just a robot though.

To use the art and wonder of choice in a process is the heart of creativity. Sometimes we humans act like robots, stick in a box. There is an opportunity to break out, and be more.

So pick up the Robot’s gauntlet, as it were, take up a project and put it through the machine of your human mind, eyes, hands, and any tool that suits it! Then make choices to deliberately make something new and uniquely your own.