Where Does Creativity Originate?

I recently got into a conversation with someone about the origin of creativity. Does it exist within our own minds, or us it an external phenomenon that is merely perceived internally?

There are many theories on this topic, and with creativity becoming a sort of buzzword within the past few years, many people have tried to deduce exactly where it comes from.

One of my favorite books of all time is called ‘Big Magic’ (written by the author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’), and the author argues that creativity is a sort of mysterious spark that exists in the universe. This energy may come to us at certain times and we can choose to either run with it or ignore it entirely.

Sometimes the spark is meant to be and we’re able to create something out of it, while at othertimes the spark just hits a dead end. It wasn’t meant to be – it leaves us and finds someone else who is more ready for the task.

Another quite popular theory is that creativity comes from combining seemingly unrelated ideas that already exist to form new ideas. Many entrepreneurs, for example, are able to see the overlap between unrelated ideas and create startups from the connection.

In this sense, knowledge is built ontop of prior knowledge. The prior knowledge exists as a (usually) intangible external force that our minds perceive internally.

Could it be true that our minds contain a wealth of creativity that can only be accessed if we dig deeply enough? Or are our minds merely organs that take in sensory information and process it?

I personally find it hard to believe that our minds could exist at all without an external world to perceive. They are, in a sense, the universe experiencing itself from a very narrow perspective. Maybe this means that we are all, individually, just small parts of the universe. Collectively, we contain all the knowledge that describe existence.

From here, I start to think about Quantum Mechanics. Scientifically, a particle that is observed behaves differently from one that is not. If we are observing the universe, each other, and our own minds, they will behave differently than if they were not observed.

So is it possible to not observe anything at all? I suppose when one meditates, they reach points in which no thoughts or feelings pass through. Their minds reach a point of “blankness” or “nothingness,” and maybe this is what happens when we cease to observe. Maybe, in fact, this is what hapoens when we die and cease to exist.

Maybe the deepest part of our own minds is nothing at all. Or maybe it’s like a blackhole that leads to another plane of existence. Maybe this other “plane of existence” contains a wealth of creativity that was can access and contribute to our own reality.

But, if so, that means we can create something from nothing. Is such a feat possible? Is that how our own universe began? Can we create new universes from the depth of our own minds?