What triggers creativity ?

I had posted this article on another blog day before yesterday, but I thought I should share it here too.

How many of us are creative? Well at some point all of us are (considering we are all researchers which requires some creative thinking and originality), but here I would like to focus on creativity at all levels, be it music, literature, art, research, cooking or blogging as in this case. LOL.

Question is, what triggers the creative dude in us? Don't shrug your shoulders telling yourself that 'I am not creative. Creativity is for crazy people!'. When you listen to a song and think, it would have been nice if the note was a bit different here, the creative you is working. Even when you appreciate a song as it is, or a piece of art, or nature, or life, the creative you is working subconsciously, but we do not realize it. Reading a book, watching a movie is indulging in someone else creativity thereby synchronizing you creativity with others. If you do not like a movie ( ex. Govinda blockbusters, Rajnikanth... ugh), you do not appreciate the director's creativity and hence you judge others creativity by your creative standards. If you still have doubts about your creativity, I am sure you have done bathroom singing at some point of your life. Well, listening to your own voice in the good acoustics of a bathroom and telling yourself, 'hmm, I am not that bad a singer after all', is appreciating your own creativity.

So, agreeing to the fact that all of us are creative at some level, the question I would like to address here is, which particular emotion in a human sparks the best creative work out of him/her? Happiness, pain, love, boredom, hate or just the passion about something, someone that stirs the creator in you? For example, look at any sportsman, and I feel it is the passion for that particular sport that has got them to what they are. Moving our attention to music, most of the best music has been triggered by either 'love,pain or hatred'. How many songs do we know of that deal with anything other that the above three? The entire rock scenario is surrounded by these feelings. Rock is a way of venting feelings and making a statement, and which other feelings trouble a man more than 'love, pain, hatred'. Same is the case with Blues, mostly venting frustration (and giving you a high). Music helps relieve the pent up emotions, and it is these emotions that pushes creativity out of humans, both knowingly and unknowingly. Just to make myself clear here, 'love, pain, hatred', here can be towards someone or something (like your job, boss, childhood, family, nature). I am sure all of us have been high on Pink Floyd at some point (see creative you).

I have not read a lot of literature to really make a comment on that, but, the limited reading that I have done, again revolves around the same human emotions. Lets try to get an insight into a writer's mind. A writer who had a general inclination towards romance, thinks differently from a writer who writes thrillers. There has to be some particular emotion working behind each of these writers that makes their style statement and instigates them to write about whatever they are best at and they like.

When a person says, I am a poet, a painter, a writer, I think, he/she is partially correct. How can someone be triggered by emotions at all times to be creative? You cannot just be a writer or a painter, or a musician, you can be one who does something else too. Creativity is not like a television, where you have a remote to turn it on. Any creative person needs the right environment and ambiance to let the creativity flow out spontaneously. Sometimes, it can be an incident on the street, a past memory, a conversation, anything that can trigger a beautiful piece of art.
I can go on and on. I guess being grad students, we have mastered the ability (see, we are being creative here too ...lol ) to talk on and on ( until the allotted time for the presentation is up) just about everything under the sky. Would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts. Judge my creativity with yours :)