The Architecture of Imagination: How Great Minds Viewed Creativity

From J.R.R. Tolkien to Steve Jobs

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Photo by Nishant Jain on Unsplash

Creativity is often described as a mysterious gift, a spark that arrives unpredictably, or a talent bestowed on a select few. As someone who grew up thinking they didn’t had a creative bone in their body, that is what I believed, at least. Other people were born with the creative gene but not me.

As I have grown older, I have learned that that is not the case. Creativity is not just for the special. In fact, we all have creative talent and unlocking it is one way to stay sane.

But how does one become more creative? Can it be nurtured? I looked at history’s most imaginative thinkers and tried to learn how they perceived the creative act and, in doing so, I discovered that it was something more structured and coherent. Creativity, in their view, is not ethereal. It is not mythical. It is architectural. It is a system, a discipline, a way of organising one’s experience into meaning.

Creativity is not ethereal. It is not mythical. It is architectural. It is a system, a discipline, a way of organising one’s experience into meaning.

So let me share with you the art of creativity through the lens of ten foundational thinkers — J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Pablo Picasso, Virginia Woolf, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Steve Jobs, and Kurt Vonnegut — in order to map the psychological, philosophical, and experiential principles that underpin creative work.

And what emerges is not a single definition, but a constellation of ideas that will hopefully highlight what creativity is, and how much can be found in all of us.