Creative Thought

Where does creative thought come from? Does it come from your brain? I guess before we take on that elephant we should look at thoughts themselves, whether they are creative ones or not. Think about it, have you ever sat in your comfy chair without any brain activity whatsoever? I’m sure you were thinking about something. Even now, I am forcing you to have a thought, sort of.

Our brains are always having thoughts, even when we are sleeping we have dreams. Sometimes I can’t shut my brain off when I lay down for a night of slumber. My mind and body desperately needs rest after an entire day of thinking thoughts all day. But for some reason thoughts continue to bombard my brain. Can you imagine? If you never did anything physical at all for a day and all you did was think thoughts. That would be somewhat tiring. But when you add the physical activities like exercise, work, driving, carrying your baby around all day, that just compounds our exhaustion.

So, if our normal daily thoughts come from our brain, where do the creative ones come from? The same place as our normal thoughts do? I can agree with that, for a moment. Anything creative begins with a seed of an idea that pops into your brain. But from there, it is your choice what happens to that thought. Do you toss it in the trash can in the corner of your mind? Or, do you feed and water it until it becomes something beautiful?

More often we do the former without even thinking about it, no pun intended. We just don’t realize what it is we are throwing aside and deleting from our memory banks. Granted, most thoughts are just random silly things you come across in your daily life. But some of them deserve more attention. Those thoughts are the ones we need to love and care for as if they were one of our children. After all you did just give birth to them.

How do we know which thoughts to save and nurture and which ones to toss out like yesterday’s trash? I think the ones that make you giggle. Just kidding, but I’m not really, sort of. Thoughts that make you laugh or cry or make you feel something are the thoughts you are connected to. A thought I just had was the weather sure is lovely today. Even though that is a nice thought I probably will not cherish it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably revisit that thought throughout the day but it will end when the day does. The thoughts I will store in my heart are ones that my heart feels is worthy of sharing time with. For me these thoughts turn into words for a story of some kind or a blog posting such as this one. Your thoughts could be used in any way you seem fit. The possibilities are endless.

Boundaries are only placed on your creative thoughts when you decide to place them. Nobody else controls that unless you allow them to. Sure someone may try to shoot your precious idea in the head. But you choose whether or not to protect it from harm. Don’t let your negative thoughts or criticism from others beat up your creativity. Instead use it to your benefit and learn how to make it grow into something useful to share with others.