I’ll take creativity for a dollar

According to wikipedia –
Creativity is the ability to generate innovative ideas and manifest them from thought into reality.
The process of creation was left to God (and other deities in other religions).  Alot of talk recently has led me to the belief that the overall word “creativity” has been become to vague;  however, I’ll leave that thought for another post.

Some consider the Renaissance the modern birth of creativity.
Men had a sense of their own independence and freedom.  They felt moved to give a voice to their creativity in the form of art and music.  This was the exact opposite of  the ancient Greek sense of creativity, where the concept of art was subject to rules, and not an act of freedom.  When I think about freedom of creativity, I think about men like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello. (Sidetrack thought: if there was no renaissance, would there be no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?)

Did you know that the Medici family
funded a large portion of creative men during the Renaissance, which may be why the Renaissance began in Florence, and not somewhere else in Italy.  The Medici family was a banking family, got involved in royal clothing (proving my theory that bankers are in the business of selling suits), and later a royal family.  Leonardo, Botticelli, and Michelangelo all had commissioned works from the countrymen of Lorenzo de’ Medici alone.

Great creativity comes from a lifetime of creating.
Unless you are part of the creative class, you only have the capacity to be creative during off hours of your job.  Yeah, that’s right, Super Creative is 12% of U.S. jobs and Creative Professionals are 18%.  These are the people that are being paid to create all the time.  In a way, the corporations and clients of this creative class of people, are funding creativity very much like the Medici family funded creativity in the Renaissance.

So what is your role in creativity?  Are you actively funding it, being paid to create, or are you trying to create in your spare time?

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