Creativity

            On the Friday morning of October 28^th there was another class in our room, so I borrowed a chair from an empty room and sat in the hall. When Professor Russell arrived, I told him the room was occupied, but he told me he always knows there’s another class in there because otherwise he wouldn’t see me in the hall.

            I told him about my problems uploading the essay to Turnitin the night before. He told me that they used to submit papers on Blackboard, but though Blackboard works fine for students, but it’s hell for teachers, because everything gets mixed up. I wondered why, with all the computer geniuses at U of T, that they university couldn’t utilize that brain power and have them design a system that worked for both students and teachers. He said that U of T Mississauga actually has an amazing system that runs like clockwork. I asked why they couldn’t just make a copy of that system and give it to the downtown campus. He didn’t really know, but suggested that perhaps it works in Mississauga because it is a much smaller and less complicated campus.

            Another student came up to tell him that he’d had to cut and paste his essay to submit it, rather than upload it in document form. Devlin said that was weird. The student said that it seemed to be a problem only with students that had Melissa Rees for their TA. That included me, and I had also had to paste my essay, but I didn’t know that it was supposed to be otherwise.

            The topic of our lecture was Creativity.

            Creativity seems to be a very interesting capacity. It’s special to be able to make something new. But why is it special? There are three theories:

1.      The Supernatural theory says that creativity comes from divine inspiration.

2.      The Aesthetic theory says that the creative capacity to produce artistic value

is not solvable because some just have the ability to create while others don’t. There is no originality. This is a Kantian view. The problem with this theory is that it denies the central feature of creativity.

3.      The Romantic theory says that creativity is like no other capacity. It is a gifted

capacity to produce perfectly singular ideas. It is not earned. This is a post Kantian view. It says that creativity is possible. It’s spontaneous. A Romantic would reject reformulating the past.

A poll was taken to see how the class feels about these theories. 14% agreed with

the Supernatural theory; 22% were on the side of the Aesthetic theory; 25% championed the Romantic theory; but 39%, including me, said “none of the above”.

            I offered that creativity comes from someone having the ability to un-focus or the inability to focus.

            Creativity is probably a myth because it is believed there are creative people. It is used to excuse behaviour.

            Devlin then offered us a fourth theory, which he named “The Pushing the Envelope theory”. This says that creativity is the hard won capacity to push a discipline a centimetre forward through exceptional determination. It is the ability to break the rules of one’s discipline in the right way.

            Mozart’s gifts took him years of hard work.

            After the lecture, I argued with the professor that I really didn’t buy Boden’s theory of creativity. Boden claims that everyone can achieve creativity with hard work. My experience is that creativity is something that comes easy for creative people and no amount of work can make it happen. Yes, the craft to which someone applies their creativity needs to be developed from an early age. For instance, I can write well because I started when I was twelve, while I can’t play guitar well because I didn’t start early. But if I weren’t creative I would still be a good writer. I became interested in developing my skill as a writer because I was creative and writing just happened to be the outlet that I found.

            I wanted to get a haircut, but I wasn’t sure if my stylist was in on Fridays. I tried to call Topcuts from home before I left for class, but Wind seemed to expect me to pay for my November plan by October 28^th and so my phone didn’t work for outgoing calls.  As a matter of principal, I refuse to pay so early, so after class I rode down to Topcuts to find that Amy is off on Fridays.

            The next think on my agenda was to buy socks, since I did not have a single pair that didn’t have holes in them. I rode to Walmart where I picked up four pairs of Kodiaks, which are the only kind that Walmart sells that I find sturdy and comfortable. I also bought a pack of six Haines tanks, though they never have packs with all black ones. It looked to me that I could only get two black ones and four dark blue ones. It turned out though, after I opened the package, that there were four black ones and two blue ones.

            My next project was to look for pants, since all of mine were falling apart or too short. I rode up to Bloor and then west. I parked in front of the salvation Army thrift shop and met Honey Novick and a friend of hers coming out. Honey asked me if I was going to take advantage of their 40% off sale. I hadn’t even known the sally Ann was having one. We chatted briefly and then they continued on their way. I went in and tried a pair of pants on but they were way too small.

            I went further west to the place where I’d bought my motorcycle jacket. They had lots of jeans but not much in the realm of pants, so there was nothing left to do but head over to Value Village.

            Value Village is a very well organized store. Every type of pants and shirt has its own row and each row is sectioned according to size. I picked several shirts and pairs of pants. I went into a change room with twice as many items as I was supposed to. I tried on all the shirts. There was one very nice shirt that was too big for me and a couple more that fit fine but just didn’t look good, so I scratched all the shirts off my list. The first pair of pants I tried on fit perfectly. The next few didn’t fit at all even though they were numbered as the same size or bigger than the ones that fit. One pair was slightly short but had a nice cut, so I put them with the other pair to buy. There was a pair of black jeans that fit well but they were too baggy in the crotch, so I didn’t take them. They might have been good for winter bike riding though, on top of a pair of sweat pants. So all I bought was the two pairs.

            They were selling lots of Halloween stuff and in front of me in line was a little boy in a green crocodile suit.

            I stopped at No Frills on the way home.

            Later, the guy who renovated the apartment at the top of the stairs and who might be working on the newly vacated third floor apartment, asked if he could look at my apartment because the landlord wants him to install a ventilation system for my stove. The landlord’s idea was to put the vent above my stove, run a pipe from there along the north wall to the east wall and then punch a hole there. The guy had a look and saw that I have a bathroom vent already. He said that it’ll be easier and cheaper to just run the pipe through the bathroom wall behind the stove, replace the bathroom fan that I never use because it’s so noisy and have the pipe from the stove vent go through the same place. That made more sense to me, since it would save five meters of pipe and be a lot less visually oppressive.

            The superintendent was with him and I asked if anyone had moved into the room at the top of the stairs yet, because it looked like they had, but I hadn’t seen anyone yet. Sundar confirmed that “a lady” had moved in. The last woman that lived here was half the elderly Vietnamese couple that moved out three years or so ago because the man suddenly needed a wheelchair. He said that she’s in her thirties, from Jamaica and a friend of Greg, the other Jamaican tenant.