Creative Something

Where to find creativity when you need it most.

You may not realize it, but right now you are in a violent, raging storm. The storm has been going for thousands and thousands of years and you walked right into it the moment you were born.

This storm is what we like to call life; a constantly–changing, confusing mess of events, and thoughts, and feelings.

Creativity is what helps us get through the storm, it enables us to find ways to do things that help us avoid the storm or let us cope with the storm of life. Unfortunately, finding creative inspiration isn’t always easy when everything around us is chaos.

So where do you look to find creativity when you need it most? What can you do to fight the storm of crazy, pattern–filled life?

You find creativity in the eye of the storm.

In the smack dab center of every hurricane there is what scientists refer to as an eye: a calm, peaceful center where the events of the surrounding storm are impervious. The storm we call life has many centers, it’s just a matter of finding them.

Occasionally going into the eye of the storm will allow you to collect yourself, and ultimately find creative inspiration.

As writer and photographer John White recently wrote in an article at STLtoday.com: “There is nothing quite like a dose of inspiration to get the creative juices flowing again. Whether it be at work or in our personal lives, we all need something to help rejuvenate our spirits from time to time.

“Having attended about four… GeekFests I knew that I would leave the weekend inspired and ready to dive back into work, and that did not change. But four words have stuck in my head since this past weekend from speaker Boyzell Hosey, the Director of Photography for the St. Petersburg Times, four words that can be applied to anyone in just about any profession. He spoke of the currently chaotic state of newspapers across the country and how it resembles a hurricane in some ways. But within every hurricane there is always the “eye of the storm” where everything is calm and serene, almost oblivious to all that envelops it. And within the eye there is always opportunity. The eye of the storm phrase became our mantra for the weekend and beyond.”

Sometimes getting away to a conference, an event, or just taking a vacation and doing what you love is all that you need to find creativity again. Those events and places that are calm and collected, away from the every–day storm, are where you can find creativity.

Read all about John’s experience in his eye of the storm (in this case a photo event) right here. It’s a very short article with pretty pictures, and very inspirational.

Where (or what) do you consider to be your eye of the storm?