The Creative Instinct

There’s something seductive and intoxicating about being a creative butterfly - those gorgeous flashing wings that flit from beautiful flower to beautiful flower - the constant heady sipping of nectar and the basking in the warm sun with wings ablaze for all to see.

I don’t know if there’s a creative butterfly in all of us, but there certainly is in me. And left to its own devices, left in control, it can be a very damaging creature.

For people at the very beginning of their creative journey, butterflyism can actually stop them ever getting started in the first place. When you are equally attracted by so many different flowers, it becomes difficult to properly settle on any. Choosing becomes near impossible as the fear of what may be lost overcomes the potential of what’s there to be gained.

If you are fortunate enough to be drawn to just one or two ways of expressing yourself then spare a thought for this kind of butterfly. Without help they may never choose, caught either in total inaction or a multi-facetted dilettante-ism that’s a guaranteed killer of any real creative potential.

But what if you have chosen - what if you already know that you are a potter, a singer/songwriter, a painter, a mixed media artist, photographer (I’m just giving examples here - I don’t mean all of them in one person On the other hand, if you are that person - respect!)

Creative butterflyism is still an important factor, and not necessarily a negative one. Without doubt it can be a powerful positive force. It is after all, that part of you that is attracted to new ideas and ways of doing things. It’s drawn to all the most novel and innovative flowers, and because of that it can bring a constant freshness to your work.

But - if you want depth to your work, if you want to get more than a transitory satisfaction from your creative process, and if you want to get your work noticed, you need more in your creative armoury than the butterfly can offer.

I’ll explore what that may be in my next post.

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What’s your experience of butterflyism? Please leave a comment.