people also have to cope with the demands the environment places onthem. There are many administrative positions in which a respected name is a great asset.Government agencies and private foundations like to have them on board. More than money,or power, it is the feeling that there is something important that needs to be done and thatthey are the people who can do it, that prompts creative people to take up such assignments.But creative people keep themselves meaningfully occupied all the time. They never seem tohave surplus time. They do not easily get bored. Nor do they spend even a few minutes doingsomething they dont believe is worthwhile.CREATIVE AGINGThere are two kinds of intelligence. The first is fluid intelligence, or the ability to respondrapidly, to have quick reaction times, to compute fast and accurately. This type of intelligenceis innate and is little affected by learning. Its various components peak early teens, twentysor thirtys. Each later decade shows some decrease in these skills, and after age seventy, thedecline is usually quite severe even among otherwise healthy individuals.The second type of mental ability is known as crystallized intelligence. It is more dependenton learning than on innate skills. It involves making sensible judgments, recognizingsimilarities across different categories, using induction and logical reasoning. These abilitiesdepend more on reflection than quick reaction, and they usually increase with time, at leastuntil the age of sixty. Creative people seem to depend more on crystallised intelligence.As they grow older, creative people may find themselves under much pressure with too littletime, often due to over commitment. Physical fitness is another concern. On the other hand,with age there is less anxiety over performance, and more display of courage, confidence,and risk taking. With age it is also possible to occupy a central position in the field, or todevelop new forms of association, especially with students.The promise of more and different knowledge never lets down creative individuals. They canlose physical energy and cognitive skills, but symbolic domains remain always accessibleand their rewards remain fresh till the end of life. Many creative people take full advantage ofchanges in the domain. Creative individuals see age in a positive light, because they are stilldeeply involved in exciting and rewarding tasks.Erik Erikson refers to the last psychological stage of life as achieving integrity. If we live longenough and resolve all the earlier tasks of adulthood then there is a last remaining task thatis essential for our full development as a human being. This consists in bringing together intoa meaningful story our past and present, and in reconciling ourselves with the approachingend of life. Many creative people seem to fall in this category.Creative people often blend pride in family with pride in work. Many of them are also drivenby a feeling of responsibility for the common good. But they shoulder this as a privilege ratherthan a duty. Although they work hard to help improve our lives, they claim that they mostlyenjoy what they do.NURTURING CREATIVITYThe human species could not survive, either now or in the years to come, if creativity were torun dry. At the same time, the main threats