Creativity

What is Creativity? How do you define it? I don't think you do. Being creative often involves creating something. But people who don't create things can be just as creative as those who do. Where does the person who creates the things get their Ideas? They have to come from somewhere before the process started. Looking at it from an etymological standpoint, it is made up of Create and -ivity. First off: Create. Creation is to make something, thus the verb Create is used in this word to have it describe making something. The suffix -ivity is slightly more interesting. Words such as ACTivity and PRODUCTivity use it to 'noun' verbs. You measure productivity as how much someone produces. Activity is how much one acts. Thus, measuring creativity would be how much someone creates, right? Wrong. I'm sure when the word was new, it meant this. But over time, The english language has had this word evolve into something completely different. Instead of what comes out of your hands, creativity is what goes on in your head. To be creative you have to do something new, think of something wild, go somewhere no man has gone before. In order to measure creativity, you would have to go into a person's head aand look at all of their ideas, one after another. Naturally, with current technology (as of February 2010) this is impossible. (at least to my knowledge as one of the uncultured masses, I'm watching for you big brother) Unlike productivity or activity, creativity is unmeasurable. There are no thought-charts to show the quality of your thoughts, no thoughtometers to measure how many thoughts you have. Each person has to measure their own creativity. While there is nothing wrong with being boring, society has it ingrained in us that we need to dare to be different. Just like everyone else.