Drug Induced Creativity

There is a question that makes me extremely curious about drugs and that is, can they increase ones ability to perceive creativity?  I have many friends that are active drug users, unfortunately some are abusers, that have seemed to change after an experience with a certain drug, particularly LSD, psycosilibin, or mescaline.  A group of my friends decided to go the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, LA while they were "tripping" on LSD.  One of them came back and decided his major was going to be marine biology, another came back just talking about the colors, and another came back and didn't even realize that he was at the aquarium; however, one of them actually had an interesting connection that he made to creativity.  He claimed that from that day forward, he noticed that every single perceivable thing in this world was different from one another, because of its own separate creative attributes.  He noticed that while he was on the drug, nothing that he saw was similar such as two of the same tree or two of the same door knobs, etc.  Even today, several months after he had taken the drug, he notices the same creative idea within everything.  

Star Wars IRL?

In heritage, we recently studied cybernetics and technological advancements for the future.  The term "transhumanism" came up in one of our discussions and it was defined as using cybernetics and artificial intelligence to overcome the constraints of our natural human bodies.  This made me immediately think of Darth Vader from Star Wars and what our civilization is coming to.  This is an example of how creativity is used to progress further and faster technologically, and an example of how to become better faster and stronger as human cyborgs.  In my opinion, This scares the living shit out of me and I hope that it never happens, although futurologists predict that it will be very popular within the next 20-40 years.  This is because of the rate that technology is progressing.

Flow

One of the most interesting aspects of creativity is the flow experience that comes to a person within the creative process.  I have experienced his many times in sports and while playing guitar.  To my understanding, the flow experience is when you are doing something you enjoy, and you completely loose track of time.  An example of this would be when I am pitching in a baseball game.  I will only look at the scoreboard once the entire game, but when I doit will be the fifth inning when it seems as though it should be the first.  While playing guitar, I have experienced this too.  When I am playing a live show for people with my band, I notice that our set ends before I can even grasp the understanding that I am actually playing in front of a large crowd of people.  Like I said about pitching, we will be performing our last song when It feels like we are playing the first.  

Bottled Water

So I'm drinking this bottle of water and I'm really curious how much healthier this really is for me opposed to tap water.  I think bottled water is the stupidest epidemic in the entire world because it is a huge waste of money.  To me this is an example of using creativity in a pessimistic sense, because it is making some companies rich.  HELLO WATER IS FREE PEOPLE!!!!!!!  Seriously it pours from the sky and it covers 70% of the land we live on.  Anyway, getting back on topic, creativity does not always have positive outcomes for everyone.  For some companies like Coca-Cola, who makes Dasani, and Wal-Mart, who makes Sams Choice, they are simply charging people an average of a dollar and fifty cents to put a plastic bottle around something that makes up 70% of our bodies.  They are using creativity to make "easy" money by selling natural resources.

Daily Routines

Daily routines are the building blocks of our creative flow. I feel that if you compare any two people on the planet, something about their daily routines will be different. The routines that I am referring to are the things we do each day (getting out of bed, getting dressed, going to work, etc.), how we do these things, and what we do these things with. Most people will get out of bed primarily early in the morning to clean up and go to work or school, but it is guaranteed that it is done differently by each individual person because of their different creative minds which give them preferences. For instance, Russell and I get out of bed every morning at 8:00 to get breakfast in the caf' and then go to class. Although this is the same itinerary, we do it differently. I will wake up, immediately take a shower, then groom myself, then get dressed according to what I want to wear. Russell however, will not get out of bed until I come back to get dressed, because he takes his shower before bed. I then have to wait on him to groom himself and get dressed, so I'll call my girlfriend and talk to her. When we are both ready to go, we leave and we argue over which way to go because we want to go each separate ways. Even when we get to the caf' we never have the same combination of breakfast food. This is a prime example of clashing creativity in daily routines.

Dreams

Should dreams be considered a type of creativity? My dreams are usually related to a past experience, a future Deja Vu occurrence, or just a mumble of my own personal thoughts. Creativity is not intentionally used by us to have dreams, but i feel that it is subconsciously used to produce them. Sometimes creativity can be used to start a dream that can be carried into sleep, but it is usually correspondent to the participant's consciousness. If one is still awake visualizing the start of a dream, then creativity is being consciously used until the unconscious sleep process begins. When this process begins, creativity is then subconsciously used to carry on these segements of thought, and it ties them together to make a happening of events or a dream. These segments of thought can be pleasant or unpleasant due to the thoughts of the participant. Creativity is used to have dreams, but it is used respectfully with the consciousness of the person.

Technonolgy

Technonolgy has allowed the human race to progress in great strides since the beginning of our existence, but can come of it be detrimental to the flow of creativity in our lives? I see creativity amongst everything we do (as expressed in Creativity). Creativity is involved in the creation of technology to make our lives easier; however, some technology has mad us lazier, and has also taken away from our flow of creativity. An example of this would be the television. Television is a form of entertainment that was creativly made for news and entertainment, but it is also a hinder to a viewers flow of creativity. No one can be creative if they are glued to watching the television and they choose not to think of other productive ways of being creative. However, this does not necessarily mean that before the television was invented, people before us weremore creative, but they did have to work harder and they were more productive. Technology should only be used to progress in posiive strides, and for more productive reasons, such as gaining knowledge and reason.

Creativity

What is Creativity? Well this is one of the hardest questions to answer. I see creativity in everything because of this class. It defines us as individual people in society. It is how we live, act, and approach every living second of our lives

With this said, it aggravates me how creativity is usually only incorporated with the arts. In high school I had a friend who held a twenty minute argument with me about how he was more creative than me; this was solely because he had been enrolled in three art classes since he began high school, and because hadn't taken any fine arts classes yet. He claimed that he could apply creativity better than me, because he "expanded his mind" in this art class. I even reminded him that I was, and still am, an active musician; however, he completely ignored my musical talent. This shows how ignorant society really is to the view of creativity in others.

Creativity in Unpleasent Music

When exposed to heavy metal music, most people do not accept that it is talent but just noise, but if you actually sit down and listen to the individual instruments you will find that they are exceptionally talented. Heavy metal is one of my favorite music genres and it has been for years. As an active guitarist, this style of music has influenced me tremendously and has improved my talent as well. Although to some it may seem unpleasant to listen to because of the stereotypical screaming lyrics, I believe that it is a form of creativity because it was a new style of rock n roll. When comparing the music genres, rock music has the most sub genres compared to any other broad genre of music and heavy metal is different than any of them. This is a way to get creative in music.

Faith or Creativity?

For ages, many people have argued over religion and what it stands for. It has caused wars and heavy violence because of opposing ideologies, but my question is why? I was confirmed a Catholic when I was in high school, and now as I look back at it, I have become somewhat of a skeptic with religion. I often see people quarreling over which religion is correct and which is wrong. Personally I believe that religion is a form of creativity to explain things that science cannot prove. For example, some people claim that they believe in their savior Lord Jesus Christ, but I believe it is a form of creativity that not only explains the unsolved mysteries of the world, but it also acts as a security blanket to make people comfortable with coping with death and accepting the afterlife. I do believe that there is some kind of higher being, but not so detailed such a set religion.