Epic of Creativity

for a scholarship

Creativity is

A light bulb switching on

In the deep part of the ocean,

Where the sea monsters dwell—

I guess ignorance and apathy,

Unoriginality and vapidity

Are sea monsters too—

The villain of Delusion the worst of all:

In a world of well-structured formulas

Easily explainable solutions

And time-trusted strategies,

What need is there of

Creativity?

(If you want light,

Just flick the switch—

What’s the big fuss?)

The art of making light is gone.

Challenge

(By definition:

The call to engage)

Is the Solution—

Though not a simple one.

Challenge,

Which is most effective when it comes from within,

Is not taught—

It is

                        Spread

Spread like an infectious disease

By both example and need—

Art after all arises from the

                        Need

For self-expression.

Creativity—

It is like Field of Dreams:

Build it and it will come.

 

The biggest enemy to creativity

Is its reputation:

Oddity and penny-salaries—

In another word,

In another all-too-enforced

                                                Blasphemy:

Pointlessness.

(If the light bulb works,

What’s the point of understanding it?

What’s the point of inventing a new one?)

The purpose of creativity—

The meaning of creativity—

Has been too long

Concealed.

The purpose,

You ask?

To do more than just live—

To write poetry

On a mid-night whim,

To paint in splatters of

Vibrancy that have a mind of their own

                                                            With your eyes closed,

To feel the gears clicking in your mind and to

                        Know

How man first felt when he saw

Flame

And felt the burn of it

And looked in amazement at the pale blue tongues

That matched those which raced through his veins,

Sparking up the neurons in his brain.

 

Creativity is not

Just art

Or playing with words,

Nor is it just the poor man’s job—

The idea that has been too long

Much too long

Enforced.

Creativity is

Innovativeness

(The forgotten tagline of

Bill Gates and other million-dollar men).

But what does that mean when

            Children

Like me

Are being taught the formulas

Instead of the relationships—

And—don’t laugh—

Even numbers have relationships,

Even chemicals have an undeniable attraction,

Even if it is just all electronegativity.

What do we learn when all we are taught is

What to know?

 

Why aren’t we taught to

Break—

Shatter—

Smash up and splinter—

Some of the rules

                        (At least sometimes)

For, without the rebel,

Without the

Lower-cased e.e. cummings,

The Mondrian who painted beauty in

__________lines_____________

And

          B   L   O

          C   K  S

Of color,

And the legendary gravity-breaking apple...

Are we not merely

Robots

And all that robots produce is

A bunch of rust-flecks—

Challenge.

I echo again:

Challenge!

Teach us how to think—

Teach us how it

                        Feels

To think—

Not merely how to pass the tests.

Don’t forget

We—

Me—

The rest of those who are beginning to feel the burn of their robotic transformation—

We are the future

And there hasn’t been a Shakespeare

In too long of a time.