Creativity is everywhere.

It is the ability to integrate and syntheiss knowledge, and using the insights
to create novel ideas that no one had come up with before. We owe much of our modern lifestyle to
past human creativity. From the bluetooth earphone and smart phone, to air conditioning and
airplanes; from Shakespearean plays to Netflix shows; from the first human art to Da vinci, Monet,
and Dadaism – these are all thanks to creativity.

Creativity is certainly what distinguishes us from every other creature. Human beings are, by virtue
of their intelligence, capable of creating things that are novel, unique, sometimes of great worth,
and even though rarely, of overwhelming value. From scientific theories or great works of art or
literature, or profound philosophical treatises, or the great and lasting music that emerges from the
creative genius of one person. It is here, certainly, that we see what distinguishes us from all other
living things. While other animals are also shown to have intellegence and able to problem solve
novel tasks, none have been able to display creativity in such a wide range of situations.

In fact, human ingenuity and creativity had been one of the main reasons that had led to
improvements in our human conditions throughout the history of our civilisation. From using sticks
and stones to making tools in the stone ages, to experimenting with metals in the bronze age; from
the invention of agriculture leading to the agricultural revolution to the invention of the spinning
Jenny kicking start the Industrial Revolution; from the invention of the radio, to the television, to
mobile phones and eventually smartphones, human creativity has ceated so much for the
advancement of human quality of life.

the creative capacity of humans is not limited to the creation of works within the field of science, art,
philosophy, or literature. Instead, creative intelligence can be used by exceptional dancers, athletes,
businessmen, and even gardeners or parents. Any activity, he noted, which is “done not by rule,
rote, or imitation, but with successful originality”, is an activity performed utilizing creativity.

Altough, as we have demonstrated,

Do something. Better expressed, it says: Create something. To do otherwise is simply to waste your
precious life. Do not…rest upon your dead kinship with the beasts. All they do is eat, sleep,
reproduce, then die and decay. For a person to do no better than that is in effect to lapse into a
mere animal nature.

many people lack an activity they are passionate about, and therefore may feel as if there is nothing
they can engage in to cultivate their creativity and achieve excellence. Such individuals may feel as if
they are destined to, as Taylor put it, “lapse into a mere animal nature”.

Human beings alone have the ability to utilize their creativity to stimulate an inner transformation
and create one’s own self just as an artist creates a beautiful work of art:

In contrast to one who lives a life devoted to the cultivation of their creative capacity, the vast
majority of human beings are “willing slaves”. While creative individuals are ones who invent their
own life, creatively pursuing a passion and sculpting their self according to an inner ideal, willing
slaves let “society more or less choose their lives for them.”

Willing slavery may be the normal, or default condition of the human race. There is the innate
tendency of human beings to rest their feelings of self-worth on the approval of others. As Mark
Twain observed: “It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many people can resist.”

As for exactly how one should utilize their creative capacity so as to attain personal excellence,,there
are as many different paths to personal excellence as there are individuals. All we must do, however,
islook within ourselves, find out where our potential gifts lie, and fight against the innate urge to
become a willing slave in favor of living a life devoted to creativity. To do otherwise, is to walk an all-
too-common path to nothingness:

Directions cannot be given for achieving personal excellence, because we are all different. The gifts
and potentialities of one person are not those of another. Indeed, each person is unique. And from
this it follows that one person’s excellence is his or hers alone. No one can tell you how to achieve
yours. Your task is simply to find the one or few things that you can excel in, and then make it your
primary business in life to excel in those ways. To do otherwise, to disregard the treasures with
which you are at least potentially gifted, is simply to waste your life – a path to nothingness that is,
alas, only to common.

The reason why wasting one’s life is common is simply because it is much easier to float through life
doing as others do and thinking as other think, than to risk ridicule and disapproval in the pursuit of
excellence. To set an ideal, and through creativity strive to achieve that ideal is perhaps the most
difficult task there is, which is why excellence is attained by so few.