Creatively adapt or die

For 30 years now, I’ve written about different art forms in hopes of persuading readers to think about and discuss artistic creativity and so develop an appreciation for it and the incalculable good it offers us. It’s always appalled me that so many people believe the arts have nothing to do with them – people who watch television shows and movies, who enjoy photographs, music or even just a beautifully decorated cake or a handsome tie.

Many of these same people recognize the value of scientific invention - the creation of vaccines, the designing of better can openers, the devising of suspension bridges and cell phones – because science so often results in practical solutions to everyday problems. But they fail to see that science and art are merely slightly varying ways of applying human ingenuity to human life and experience of the world.

They need to wake up to the fact that we can’t survive without that ability to apply ingenuity. And here’s a word that may help them: adaptability.

We human creatures have taken over the world because we are able to change our ways to suit the climate, times and situations we find ourselves in.

The Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program defines it this way:

The definition adaptability contains the definition of creativity. Both are essential survival skills.

Many normal Americans would laugh themselves off their convertible couches at the idea that, say, interpretive dance might enhance their survival skills. But they should look at their own lives and notice the ways that they themselves have adapted to change in order to get through their days sanely.

The way they’ve learned to weave a path around the kids’ scattered toys in the den? Dance. The enthusiasm they pretend at boring staff meetings and the cheery hellos they summon for their hated bosses? Theater. The little hum they use to calm the baby or themselves? Music. Their cleverly planted climbing roses and hollyhocks that hide the neighbors’ ugly fence? Art. 

Don’t these skills make their lives safer, pleasanter, better? You bet they do.

The word adaptability first came to me last night while I was contemplating the adjustments I’ve had to invent to survive running a start-up venture from my home - a home I share with a husband, a rabbit and two teenagers whose school schedules, social lives and computer demands frequently conflict with what I need to do to stay in business. 

Changing my own schedule so that I do a lot of my work late at night when everyone else is in bed was just the beginning. I’ve devised hiding places for the paper clips and Post-it notes that used to disappear from my (shared) desk; figured out how to get the electrical cords off the floor by rubber-banding them to the window locks, so the bunny can have a romp in the kitchen in the morning without chewing his way to a flash-fried demise before I exile myself to the office/guest room for the day; learned to live off handfuls of almonds for lunch so I can make meetings and be back for school pick-up at 3; acted positive and sung loud, therapeutic White Stripes songs when orthodontist appointments, school open-houses, music lessons, emergency shopping trips and forgotten gym clothes have totally and utterly blown up my goals for the day. 

And I haven’t bitten off all my hair yet or tried to smother myself with my little lumbar cushion. (Though I’ve come close.) So creativity really works. How do all those Americans think their convertible couches got designed in the first place?

The fried sole proprietor and other fishy tales of necessity and invention

It didn’t take a collapsing economy to show me that starting a business was going to demand all the ingenuity I have. Since I was beginning with essentially no funding but my own little savings, I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to be able to hire all the experts or buy all the ready-made tools and services I needed.

I had to invent my own, instead. I’ve needed to learn to be my own marketing director, for instance, and my own office manager while crafting my own promotional materials, press strategies and inventory systems. When things turn out all right, I can feel some pride in my own creativity. And when they don’t, I find myself wishing like hell that I could just pay to get someone else’s. 

The fact is, no matter how energetic and determined I am, I just can’t be as knowledgeable, efficient and innovative as an industry professional in any field except writing. Which kills me, because I’m a type-A perfectionist.

So, on the one hand, limited money brings out my creativity, as it does many people’s, and on the other, it frustrates me with how inadequate that creativity often is. Thus, I am stimulated/bummed nearly all the time.

Only a licensed psychologist (which I’m not and I slump dejectedly to admit I never will be) can assess how many months and years of this sort of caffeinated moping my psyche will take before it cuts its moorings entirely. But in the meantime, the sleepless little orderly in my brain compiles growing lists of the creative tasks I want to keep and the ones I cannot wait to unload on some specialist whose personal economy I’ll be helping to develop.

This last list starts with fund-raising and, so far, ends with orchestrating search optimization strategies. But there’s a lot in between and the tally gets longer all the time. It all feels like homework and I seldom have a night without it, whereas the fun stuff, such as searching out new bloggers and artists, goes by as fast as recess.

Here’s the upside: Doing the creative jobs I like provides enough endorphins to get me through – well, almost – the icky stuff. But here’s the downside: Inevitably, say by Thursday night, I and my powers of imagination become burnt little knobs of pure filter-grade carbon. Week after week after week.

How can I and other lone business operators keep being endlessly creative (because we have to, especially now)?  Feed off other people’s creativity, I guess. Whether it really works or not, it’s a great excuse to spend Friday evenings reading novels, listening to music, watching movies and eating someone else’s cooking. For a sole proprietor, it’s a relief once in a while to make like a pilot fish.