This Chapter promotes the benefits of creativity when supporting families in our Focus Group.
I stated elsewhere that I have considerable evidence that the general belief among ordinary citizens (and sustained by the Pillars) is that containment is the best we can do in this work. (That is, we’re not going to solve the crime problem it so we must contain it).
Now that would be fair enough if leadership within the Pillars were honest about it, but they are not.
Containment is more implied by what is done and not done day by day than explicitly stated as a policy.
I stated previously that the difference between our chosen field and an engineering context is that one would have to be honest about a policy of containment in an engineering context simply because whatever was being built wouldn’t work properly if the problem was merely contained. Well, perhaps it might work for a while – but eventually it would malfunction. Also, and crucially, if it was getting worse and affecting other areas of the machine then we would have to solve it.
But this is not the case with supporting people in distress!
The Pillars constantly talk/write/debate etc. as if there are problems to be solved (and there are) but actually do not know where to start with the solving. Partly this is because it is a different kind of problem (as I have described in previous Chapters), but it is also because of pressure from, and competition between each other to do something.
And rather than starting with the people the Pillars start with themselves.
In creativity, we turn what others see as disadvantages into advantages, we seek out new experiences and are curious about people and situations, we use everything that is available to us, we are open to new possibilities, continually searching and exploring, enjoying the journey as much as the destination.
Many great discoveries happen by accident, and many happen after years of searching, endeavour and hard work. Either way, they happen because the people who make them happen have the traits that I listed in the post on discipline. And also, the discoveries often happen along the journey, not at the end – if there is an end.
As we see at Christmas, when loads of money is spent on toys and the children play with the boxes, creativity is innate.
But I believe that poverty, trauma and all that goes with them, has a dampening effect on utilising our innate creativity in our goal of achieving our full potential – self-actualisation as Abram Maslow might call it.
Because when we are struggling to survive creativity is used just for that – survival.
And our never-ending struggle for survival may distract us from appreciation of beauty and its place in our growth and development. And for some reason I also believe that poverty, trauma etc. can get in the way of our appreciation of the power and importance of the abstract.
While we cannot stop ourselves creating, we may not fully value its importance in our lives.
There’s a link between creativity and anxiety/fear. Just like the child in school who cannot learn because he is anxious or afraid, the fearful practitioner will not be creative. (I have personal experience of this in various jobs that I have had).
There is not much point in breathing deeply to alleviate the anxiety like one would if one was making a speech – ongoing fearfulness and anxiety in our work has a far more debilitating kind of effect on us.
I stated elsewhere in the website that the people who need creativity the most experience it the least – the challenge for the creative practitioner in the creative organisation is to be creative in being creative.