There are multiple senses of the word “creativity”, and this post focuses on one of them: divergent thinking. The other sense is that of constructive, goal-oriented creation, which ideas alone cannot achieve. It’s too bad we don’t have have more commonly used terms to make this distinction. I see a lot of comments here focusing on that distinction rather than the post’s central thesis.

I do have a comment on the thesis, which is:

> The purpose of this article is to challenge this assumption [that creativity is binary] and discuss aspects of ideation, i.e. the process of coming up with ideas.

I support/agree with this challenge and all of the article’s ideas. “And yet”, right?? “And yet” some people are perceived to “have something” which others do not.

Honestly, the explanation is rather simple, or at least, simply stated. It’s neurodivergence. I’d further claim that cognitive styles gravitate to certain “attractor points”. (That’s scientific lingo for: certain patterns which fit well within the environment and which reinforce themselves. Like the pattern of wheel-ruts which attract wheels, which makes them stronger. The “environment” in this case is all sorts of things, including both the brain’s biological details, and the body’s physical+social environment.)

The strongest of these attractor points, we give labels: ADHD, various species of autism, etc. And of course the “normal person” attractor - not a point, but a broad area with its little micro-attractors and, sometimes, niche wormholes leading to more divergent areas.

People tend to clump around the strongest attractor points, and sometimes get pulled into other more smaller ones. This easily explains the perception of binary other-ness, especially when you consider that deviation from the norm - in any of the many directions - is, itself, a strong, influential force in this dynamic. To the extent that we try to build society to work well enough for the majority, anyone who deviates will have different and novel experiences of those systems.

But look, people are complicated and dynamic. We sometimes work to push away from these pattern-ruts, and other times we let ourselves be pulled into them.

This article is saying: YES. You can do things that make you ideate more divergently. You can also do the work to explore your own cognitive-behavioral niche, and which pushes your idea output into more novel, “creative” realms. Play is a certain type of work, when you need to push yourself to do it.

The article also addresses this:

> Good ideas do not have to be completely novel

> A hallmark of creativity is the knowledge or intuition of picking ideas that make suitable combinations. [more worthwhile to pursue]

…which brings us back to the other sense of creativity: not just divergence, but convergence; pursuit of a vision or goal or “gut feeling” intuition. I think this is the better, fuller meaning of the word. The author describes interaction between convergence and divergence very well. In the best examples of “creative genius”, both of these forces are at play. (No pun intended but perhaps that’s revealing.) Fluid, progressive creativity is at the edge of these two forces, and a “creative” person steers the ship, aware of both convergent goals and overarching visions that can only be reached by leaving those same goals behind.

The general skill of steering is quite meta-learnable by, probably, nearly everyone with any ounce of cognitive control. It takes time and support. It’s easier in more specific contexts, more well-suited to one’s situation.

For what it’s worth, toddlers absolutely do exhibit this full version of creativity, when you consider that they are pursuing the instinctive, hard-wired goal of learning and adapting to the world.