“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” `Albert Einstein

Creativity, I think is always good. When there’s excess of it, is it still good? Generally, anything in excess is bad. With regards to creativity though, even an excess can be good depending on the situation a person is in. When I was younger it was frustrating for me whenever I experience an overflowing creative juice because it drags my focus away from my studies. I used to go around the Medical building with my sketch pad and do sketches at the back of the morgue or in any unoccupied classroom.:-) However, that also served as my natural anxiolytic so it wasn’t totally bad. If there’s anymore excess after few sketches, I close my eyes and ‘blank-off’ which I learned later is called meditation. Back then, there was no internet yet, so I haven’t read anything about meditation.

With those who work in any field that requires mainly creative ideas, an excess in creativity may not be a bad thing as long as it is channeled and managed properly without sacrificing one’s health. It’s difficult to have creativity excess for those whose full-time job doesn’t require much creativity.

If one finds a way to manage the excess creativity productively, then it’s good. If the excess drives one to inaction, then it’s bad, especially if he has family responsibilities and financial obligations to meet. In the clinic setting, one of the substances used to manage overdose is activated charcoal, to absorb the excess drugs and reduce the amount absorbed into the blood. From our cruising and island lifestyle, I discovered the equivalent of activated charcoal for creativity overdose that I can prescribe:

• Nature Immersion Therapy – This is fully experiencing nature, with a clear mind, not cluttered with all your worldly concerns; not even inspired by it but just experiencing it. I said, not even inspired because once you look at nature to be inspired, it could aggravate the overdose. Just experience it…breathe in…breathe out…while your senses takes it all fully, in the moment.
• Discipline – This is easier if one practices mindfulness or meditation but if he is not into this, discipline is achieved through sheer willpower. The latter though, does not have the calming and stress-relief benefit that comes with meditation or mindfulness.
• Filing Ideas – I don’t like the thought of an idea going to waste, so got into this habit of writing down the ideas, the gist of what that is about or just a list of main ideas. Then I save it. I have folder for it in my laptop and in my mobile phone.

If you have more ideas to add to the ones I mentioned above, I would appreciate if you share them in the comment section and I’ll add it to this blog with link to your blog or credit to your name.