Charlotte Hajer is the executive director of the Sonoma Community Center.
Hi, my name is Charlotte, and I’m not creative
I like to knit, but I always need a pattern. I play the violin, but always to sheet music: I’m horrible at improvising. And I like to write, but my preferred medium is non-fiction – I write about real people, and the things that happen between them. In other words, I like to make stuff, but I don’t have any original ideas; I always need instructions.
I’ve never identified as a creative person. But what I’ve come to realize, since starting to work at the Sonoma Community Center, is that I’ve been thinking about creativity all wrong. Creativity isn’t something you do or don’t have. It’s not a genetic trait, like green eyes, or the ability to roll your tongue. It’s better to think of it as a particular way of using your brain. Creativity is all about letting your neurons and synapses combine things in unexpected ways to generate new ideas. And everyone – including me and you – is born with this capacity for creativity.
It’s a capacity that can certainly be stunted, though. I blame my own withered creativity on perfectionism: conforming to expectations (and excelling at it) was always my way of avoiding rejection, and conformity doesn’t leave a lot of room for new ideas. For others, it could be any number of internal or external forces that discourage creative thinking. Stress, trauma; even lack of sleep can do it.
But the beautiful thing is that our brain retains the capacity for creativity throughout our lives. It’s never too late to cultivate it again. All you need is a little bit of space, and a little bit of safety. Your brain needs to know that it can try out new connections, and see where they lead, without repercussions. If you can access even a little bit of that sense of freedom, you’ll see that creativity becomes possible.
And you’ll see that creativity is about much more than art. If it’s all about generating new ideas from unexpected connections, creativity is ultimately just a mode of problem-solving – and a powerful one at that. And that means anything we do can be creative. Even balancing your budget, cleaning the house, or parenting.
And that’s a good thing, because creativity is inherently linked to mental health. Study after study shows that creative activity generates positive emotions, and reduces negative ones. Creativity is also cathartic; it allows the brain to process experience more fully, and in that way can lead to a kind of release, or even resolution.
All of this means that creativity plays a crucial role in allowing us to navigate the stressful, sometimes traumatizing world we live in. That’s why the Community Center is working hard to make sure creative activity is accessible to everyone – and to ensure that everyone feels welcomed and encouraged to participate in creative activities.
From now on, I’ll be using this space once a month to write about the ways in which I see creativity happening around me – at the Community Center, and out in the community – and I’ll share with you how I see it making a difference in people’s lives. See you in March!
Charlotte Hajer is the executive director of the Sonoma Community Center.
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We all have the capacity to do creative things with a little c. Few people are creative with a big C. Being a perfectionist is very limiting. It’s like going over a test to get an A. A C is passing. I took Series 7 the most difficult securities exam there is. If you don’t pass you don’t get past go. I got a C. No one cared what my grade was. I passed and that saved me and opened a whole new career path.