Developing Creativity

Creativity is the essence of human progress. Without new solutions there would be no cultural or scientific development. There would be no science. We would still be living in caves, if we continued to exist at all. Finding new ways of facing challenges is essential to survival. This is certainly the case if there is to be progress. It is also the case if we are to survive, because the environment is always changing. A solution that was successful in meeting an old challenge may not even come close to meeting a new challenge. And there will always be new challenges.

But beyond survival needs, we tend to prefer that which is aesthetically pleasing and wish to bring it into our lives. We also have a need for personal expression. Most often our need for personal expression centers around our need to understand our world and our individual experience of living out our life. On an existential level this could be: "What does it mean? Why are we here?" On a mundane level it could be something like: "Why did uncle Mike stop eating Captain Crunch? He loves Captain Crunch." The goal of many in reading literature, for example, is to gain insight into the human condition in order to make more sense of one's own life, rather than merely divert one's attention from a falling stock market.

Another intrinsic goal is to seek more complex experience, to upgrade the quality of our experience, to make it more full and aesthetically pleasing. We are naturally driven--as we develop--to listen to more complex and meaningful music; to watch more compelling and visually arresting movies; and to eat more tasty and innovative food. Thus literature will have a much higher probability of reaching the reader if it portrays its insights into the human condition in a realistic and aesthetically pleasing way. The writer will most effectively be able to do that if he or she understands the mechanisms of how creativity works.

The first approach to developing something new often falls under the rubric of problem solving. Its approach tends to be more methodical, as its focus is to meet challenges. It is considered to rely on an accurate analysis of the challenge and the employment of intellectual skill. The second approach is what most people think of when they talk about creativity. It is considered to rely on intuition and talent, because its focus is to create art. This distinction, however, is artificial. It may be helpful to someone new to the field of creativity, but the distinction is much more so one of emphasis of related processes, rather than it is or needs to be qualitatively different.

Professor Howard Gardner, for example, the creator of the "Seven Frames of Mind" approach to understanding intelligence, resists linking problem solving to creativity because when he stares in awe at a beautiful painting or listens in rapture to complex music, he cannot equate such high level artistic expression and his enjoyment of it with solving a problem. 

Another example of the distinction can be found by how the culture views the second approach as talent driven, rather than intellectually or some other skill driven. Talent is something innate, perhaps genetic, and somewhat unexplainable. Many people feel they are not creative, while believing they can improve their intellectual abilities through education. They mystify the creative process because they don't understand how it occurs.  

But the two processes are merely different ends of the same spectrum. Seeing them as fundamentally different is a result of the limitations of the untrained mind. As the creative end of the spectrum is a higher ordered process, mastering it will lead to better results whether one is meeting challenges or producing art. But there are times, even in the loftiest artistic endeavors, where the step-by-step, trial-and-error approach of the problem solving method applied with a well-developed knowledge of the higher ordered processes of creativity will accomplish what the creative approach alone cannot.

As for Professor Gardner's difficulty in relating art to problem solving. Artistic expression attempts to solve one of the most vexing problems we face: How does one convey to another the insights and feelings of the human heart-mind in a way that will be felt by another? Or as the English novelist, George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans), eloquently put it: 

Art...is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.

The greatest benefit we owe to the artist...is the extension of our sympathies....a picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves.

While Evans was likely thinking of literature, art, and music when she wrote those words, the words have many applications to cooking. To conduct even a single hands-on cooking class in a way that educates rigorously while nurturing the student is a way of "amplifying experience," a way of moving the student "into that attention to what is apart from themselves." To conduct a demonstration class, demonstrate a recipe in a large public forum, or even to hand out freshly made butter pecan caramels to people clerking at the local store is a way of "extending our contact with our fellow-[beings]."

The problem solving method is a five or six-step process of hypothesis generation, testing, and evaluation. It is well documented and the actual model can be obtained from many sources. The creative process at its highest level, on the other hand, is a successful marriage of domain knowledge, artistic technique honed through experience, and a fluid application of intuition. When these elements come together, we have art. As with most things, the more trained someone is in each of these areas, the better will be her or his art. 

Although intuition has a connotation of extra sensory perception about it and may, in fact, lead to such an experience, this understanding is not required in order to employ the intuitive faculties of the mind. While the intellectual mind is representational and processes information in a serial fashion, the intuitive faculty employs direct experience in place of abstraction and processes information in a super-parallel fashion, looking at a vast array of past knowledge and experience as well as current data simultaneously to produce results that seem beyond normal abilities because it is difficult to explain how the solution came about.

 While this may explain why so many people feel they are not creative or that creativity is a talent, creativity is a skill that can be learned. But because its highest expression arises when the mind is not flitting about with its customary obsession on all manner of things pertaining to the self, the process inevitably requires the creator to have a focus arising from intense passion or from having undergone higher level mind training. 

Additional elements of creativity include the notion that the creative process involves both innovation and usefulness. Innovation, alone, is not sufficient for something to be labeled creative. A creative work or product must be useful to be labeled creative. Second, there is a difference between something that is innovative and useful for the individual and something that is innovative and useful for the culture. This distinction is also referred to as the difference between little c and big C. Lastly, in talking about creative products that are a benefit to the larger society it is useful to acknowledge the effect of gate-keepers on what is accepted by the larger society. Typically gate-keepers are thought of in relationship to academia or institutions such as symphonies or museums, but we can also see how business elements such as promotion, price, and market forces can act as gate-keepers to prevent or allow a creative product to succeed in the market. These business elements are most important to the success of commercial products, but often have a role in the success of art.

Because of the vast array of ingredients, techniques, sub categories such as desserts and baking, ethnic variation, as well as the regular nature of food preparation, cooking is an incredibly fertile ground for developing creativity. In addition, it has natural entrepreneurial aspects that permit the learning of business elements and how they can effect a product's acceptance and longevity.