Creativity Is Progression | The Great Acting Blog
How creativity and progression are linked.
Creativity is about starting with a blank sheet of paper and discovering what might fill it. If we simply repeat what we have done before then it is simply not creativity. Creativity is a process of discovery, largely through trial and error plus the use of technique. If the process is true, then a new idea is brought into existence.
Heraclitus was not writing specifically about creativity of course, but the point is the same in the progression of our work more broadly. To repeat what we have already done is not only uncreative, it is stagnant, it leads to Heraclitus’ impasse. If we repeat ourselves then our work and our lives stagnate. We get stuck.
To progress then, is to create. If you are not progressing as you would like then maybe it is time to stop doing what you are doing and find a new way. But it’s often difficult to stop what we are doing because we cannot envisage another way, and, in any case, it’s scary and requires a different type of strength. Perhaps then, the way to do it is to stop what you are doing first without knowing what comes next and then discover a possible other way – seek the unforeseen, as it were. So change becomes a creative process of discovery.
Look at the myriad actors who walk away from their work each year and without achieving very much at all. Ground down by the lack of opportunities, frustrated by the unproductiveness of the casting process, they finally exhaust their supply of motivation and energy and belief. It is so common as to seem cliched – and they cope with this failure by using magic chants such as “acting will always be with me”. But the truth is, actors should quit auditioning not quit acting. “Quit auditioning you say?! But if I don’t audition how will I advance my work? How will I provide myself with opportunites?” On the surface these might seem reasonable questions to ask. But how about this: stop doing it and then discover what you might do instead – this has to be better than surrendering meekly back to your home town for a life of 9-to-5 mediocrity, and, in any case, by stepping into the unforeseen you might just surprise yourself.
Make a discovery.
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