The writing on the wall: do we really grow out of creativity?

A painting project with the boys

My husband and sons have been reading books on the Lascaux cave drawings and have even gone as far as taping up large swaths of paper in our hallway for the boys to recreate their own cave drawings. So far we have dolphins, snakes, zebras, mammoths, birds, etc. scaling the walls. This project is one of many that seem to take place around our apartment, the most frequent being Ettu's tape installations, where various colors of masking tape can be found on walls, windows, and baracading bedroom doors. Nalin and I were recently watching a video of Khoi Vinh, the former designer director at NYTimes.com who acutely states that "as we get older, we grow out of creativity." What a solemn thought. Vinh goes on to illustrate, through his own daughter, how children are endlessly interested in creating and imagining new things. And yet, somewhere along the way our children are taught, just as we were, that the values of creation are of secondary importance in life. Or perhaps we become more and more self-conscious of the ways we can contribute creatively on a personal or especially on a societal level.

Entrepreneur and blogger Andrew Chen wrote an interesting post today for new college graduates, stating quite simply and emphatically: Don't sell your time. Step number 1: "Learn to make something, anything." And yet this notion seems to baffle most of us. If anything, perhaps the frustrated economy of the last four-to-five years may compel some to let go of some of the tried-and-not-always-true beliefs that our education and upbringing alone will help us survive, navigate, and even succeed in the new economy. Our challenge for ourselves and for our families is ever more complex. Or perhaps it is simply more basic. We need to go back to the roots of creativity that are evident in all of us from the beginning. And we need to have an unembarrassed and unencumbered faith in ourselves in ways we haven't felt since we were very young. And that is the writing on the wall. A foray into the new, building upon something very old: our own tenacity of spirit and will — growing from and through creativity, rather than outgrowing it altogether. And like the painters of Lascaux, we can explore artistic expression and make creative decisions that may just set us apart, in the end.