hello, my dear <3
The other day, someone casually told me they weren’t creative.
It wasn’t a dramatic confession. They said it the way someone might say they’re not a runner or don’t know how to cook. Just a simple fact about themselves.
But the more I watch people become fully themselves, the more convinced I become that we’ve accidentally made the word creativity much smaller than it really is. Somewhere along the way, we decided creativity belonged to painters, writers, musicians, and people who make beautiful things for a living. Everyone else quietly opted out.
“I’m just not creative.” End of story.
I don’t think that’s true.
In fact, I wonder if creativity has very little to do with art at all.
To me, creativity looks a lot more like paying attention.
It’s noticing a connection everyone else missed. Rearranging your furniture because something about the room doesn’t feel quite right. Taking a pottery class at forty-two because you suddenly can’t stop thinking about clay. Asking a different question. Taking the long way home because the evening light is beautiful.
None of those things require a paintbrush.
They just require attention.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if creativity is simply what happens when we’re willing to notice what pulls at us—and trust ourselves enough to follow it.
One of the things I learned during the first Creative Underground was that nobody became dramatically more creative over four weeks.
What changed was much quieter than that.
People became a little more willing to notice what pulled at them. They became more willing to trust an idea before they could explain it, and a little less likely to talk themselves out of their own curiosity.
Watching that happen made me wonder if we’ve gotten the idea of creativity all wrong.
Maybe it isn’t just making art.
Maybe it’s simply paying close enough attention to notice what feels alive—and having the courage to follow it.
Maybe creativity isn’t something some people have and some people don’t.
Maybe it’s who we all are.
xx,
brittany
the
creative underground!
curiosity is directional intelligence
