Rediscovering Creativity

When I came to college as a songwriting major, I considered creativity to be one of my biggest and most valuable traits. During that period I wrote almost every day, constantly re-arranged my room and proudly wore bold (and at times cringe-worthy) clothing.

But over the next few years, school began to break that creativity down. My learning differences made classes harder, so I needed to follow the instructions closely to get A’s on my projects. I had to maintain conventional methods of organizing and discussing so that I didn’t stand out in the wrong ways. I needed to tuck away my creativity to read the textbook, regurgitate the information the next day, then forget it. My writing became formulaic; it had to be to fit all the requirements on my papers.

In retrospect, this weakening of my creativity was one of the reasons that I eventually switched out of my songwriting major, which I once loved. Creativity is one of the biggest gifts for those of us with ADD and is part of why I innitially loved writing music so much. But challenging, conventional schooling can damage those of us who think differently into forfeiting that gift.

After I changed majors, I didn’t pick up a guitar for a long time. I focused on journalism, which often let me go into writing with a universal blueprint. But after a year of freelancing, I started to get bored with the formulas.

Today I wrote a song for the first time in a while. I don’t feel any pressure to play my songs for anyone anymore, so it finally felt expressive and cathartic again. The song may be terrible, but I’m learning that with creativity, it’s more about the process than the end result.

At risk of sounding preachy, we were born to create something beautiful. So let go of the rules you’ve been taught and go get started.