You Can be Great If You Really Want To

Almost all office mission statements nowadays emphasize the need for superior creative faculties to mold the workplace into near perfection. All human resources departments include creativity in their list of qualifications for hiring, even though the term ‘creativity’ is actually very vague, when we really dig deep into the matter. True, creativity is an all too encompassing, general and abstract term that it is difficult to define in a universal sense. It can only be more directly identified when placed against a specific concept, like advertising creativity or painting creativity.

However, despite all the attention given to this idea over the centuries, little is know about the daily innovative movements that have happened through the years. What caused them exactly? Where did the novel and breakthrough ideas spring from? What traits did the person who crafted them have in order to come up with such? what kind of environment supports this kind of innovative and imaginative thinking? How can it be born or stimulated?

In the quest toward finding the real meaning of creativity and what it entails, we are left with more questions.

Despite the presence of various schools of thought on the subject, however, there are misconceptions about creativity that are common to most people. We will discuss these so-called creativity myths in brief here.

1. Only the creative artist types have creativity

Man is born with the capacity to think rationally and the ability to make his own decisions. Given these, it certainly follows that he or she also has the power to create or to be creative. Creativity is not just limited to people who can mix colors and paint beautiful frescos, or those who can string words together to come up with moving scripts, stories and poetry. Anybody can be creative. The question lies not on whether we have it, but on how we cultivate it (which is a different story, altogether).

2. Pressure leads to creativity

The more the mind is pressured, the more it feels stifled and restricted. Creativity should not be bounded by time or space because it has to be able to move around freely. How can one’s creative faculties come up with innovative ideas and concepts if they are confined to particular set of rules?

3. Competition is better than collaboration

Whether a certain endeavor is achieved via competition or via collaboration does not really matter. One isn’t better than the other. The objective of creativity is think up and perform something novel, something that has never been done before, or something that would introduce new meaning to mundane things.

In sum, achieving creativity is done by coming to terms with one’s limitations and learning to make the most out of the little that we have to come up with something that is new and extraordinary. It should not be limited by any factor, otherwise, it won’t be able to spread its wings and grow.

Since children are not yet equipped with enough visual and speech faculties to effectively communicate their thoughts and feelings with adults, their development and creative traits are best addressed via the world of play. Children respond well to visual stimuli and have been found to learn a lot better and more if information is incoporated into playtime activities. For children, better education is achieved through constant play, especially among toddlers.

Below are some of the play time activities you can use with toddlers to help them develop their creative faculties and other senses faster. A lot of other strategies exist, but the following have been found to be effective in a lot of studies. Enjoy!

I. Dump and Haul

The child begins using pre-verbal gestures to communicate starting ages 10 to 12, associates words with objects, enjoys waving goodbye and speaks her first recognizable word. At this stage, they initiate familiar games and routines with adults.

What you need

- a big basket or pail

- toys that fit into the basket or pail

- a yard of cord

What to do

- Tie a cord through a basket or pail handle. Let the child dump small toys into the basket or pail. Then drag the basket across the room as the child holds the cord.

- The child can dump the contents into another basket or on the floor again.

- Dump and haul, the dump and haul again.

II. Help Me Pack

What it can do for the child

- enrich vocabulary

- practice communication skills

- practice reaching, thereby strengthening arm muscles

What you need

- a used shopping bag or basket

What to do

- This is a fun way to putting away all your child’s toys after play time. Start putting toys and other objects in the bag while announcing “It’s time to pack away all our things.”

- Then encourage the child to join in and help out.

- As you start filling up your own bag, name and identify every object that you pick up.

Try this activity when putting items into a laundry basket, or fixing up your toy shelf.

III. Paper Cup Thrower

Your child is like a miniature Einstein, trying to explore and discover as many things about the world as he or she can every minute. A child learns to solve problems through trial and error and tries to find out the cause-and-effect relationships of every object she or he holds and the actions that are being done.

What it can do for the child

- introduce a cognitive activity that allows the child to explore shapes and spaces

- continue developing cause-and-effect links

What you need

- 10 to 12 pieces of paper cups or plastic cups

What to do

- Things fit together! What’s more, the objects look different when they do come together! These are some of the many “great” discoveries of your active toddler. Let the child play with the cups, seeing how they come together and apart, and then come back together again.

IV. Dramatic Play

At age 2 to 3 years, the child is able to concentrate on his or her self-selected activities for longer periods. Pretend-play with parents, siblings, etc becomes the highligh of his or her day as he or she muses on other people’s actions, facial expressions, and gestures – and attempts to imitate them.

Make believe or playing pretend is very important in the early years. It is also among the big favorites in a toddler’s play choices. The first interest in pretend-play begins as a 10 to 12 month old picks up a rattle, places it near his or her ear, and starts babbling words like an adult would with a telephone.

Dramatic play is one activity that strengthens holistic development. It touches these aspects in a child’s growth – cognitive: learning to use symbols through toys, emotional: playing out scenese with emotional weight, social: interacting with others, creating friendships, bonding with family, language: talking to each other, thinking of plots, new words, expressions, and physical: using gestures, facial expression, and playing “dress up”.

Since children still lack the capacity to communicate effectively, play is often their medium of education. Thus, as parents, we must allocate sufficient time for play, in order for our children to develop creative faculties early in life.

Not all efforts toward the achievement of creativity are for the good of all. There are some that cater only to a select few, sometimes to the point of being too much of a purist or fundamentalist that they seek to weed out and destroy anything that tries to oppose their ideas or gets in the way. One such proponent of Creativity is the Creativity Movement.

At first glance this movement may seem very universal and all-encompassing, embracing all kinds of background, race and ideas. However, a close look into what the Creativity Movement really is and why it has been put up may come as a shock.

The Creativity Movement is a white supremacist and racialist group that pushes for advancement and sole development of the so-called White Religion. In a contemporary view, it may be considered anti-Christian, though most of its proponents and supporters will say that it is actually an offshoot of Positive Christianity.

What the Creativity Movement does is religious in its nature, denying the occurrence of the Holocaust and focusing only on the growth, prevalence and dominance only of the white race. When we really think about it, it’s actually pseudo-Nazi.

How was the Creativity Movement formed?

It was first founded by Ben Klassen in 1973 and originally referred to as the Church of the Creator. Initially, it was simply mentioned in Klassen’s book, titled Nature’s Eternal Religion, but was later led into a real movement by Matthew Hale following his imprisonment and then named into the World Church of the Creator.

The word “world” was added to emphasize that the group’s goal was to globally encourage a world that would be inhabited only by the Whites and eradicate everything related to non-whites and Jews.

Below is the Creativity Movement’s 16 Commandments of Creativity, verbatim:

1. It is the avowed duty and holy responsibility of each generation to assure and secure for all time the existence of the White Race upon the face of this planet.

2. Be fruitful and multiply. Do your part in helping to populate the world with your own kind. It is our sacred goal to populate the lands of this earth with White people exclusively.

3. Remember that the inferior colored races are our deadly enemies, and that the most dangerous of all is the Jewish race. It is our immediate objective to relentlessly expand the White Race, and keep shrinking our enemies.

4. The guiding principle of all your actions shall be: What is best for the White Race?

5. You shall keep your race pure. Pollution of the White Race is a heinous crime against Nature and against your own race.

6. Your first loyalty belongs to the White Race.

7. Show preferential treatment in business dealings with members of your own race. Phase out all dealings with Jews as soon as possible. Do not employ niggers or other coloreds. Have social contacts only with members of your own racial family.

8. Destroy and banish all Jewish thought and influence from society. Work hard to bring about a White world as soon as possible.

9. Work and Creativity are our genius. We regard work as a noble pursuit and our willingness to work as a blessing to our race.

10. Decide in early youth that during your lifetime you will make at least one major lasting contribution to the White Race.

11. Uphold the honor of your race at all time.

12. It is our duty and our privilege to further Nature’s plan by striving towards the advancement and improvement of our future generations.

13. You shall honor, protect and venerate the sanctity of the family unit, and hold it sacred. It is the present link in the long golden chain of our White Race.

14. Throughout your life you shall faithfully uphold our pivotal creed of Blood, Soil and Honor. Practice it diligently, for it is the heart of our faith.

15. As a proud member of the White Race, think and act positively, be courageous, confident and aggressive. Utilize constructively your creative ability.

16. We, the Racial Comrades of the White Race, are determined to regain complete and unconditional control of our own destiny.