A Memorable Creative Essay

Very little is creative about creative writing at school. Teachers tend to encourage originality with one hand and dismiss truly original ideas with the other. At this point I should define creativity but by doing so I would be making many philosophers very angry. The dictionary defines it as this: "to cause, to create, to make". This, while obviously true, does not help us at all. It is like defining a sheep as an adult lamb. I may make a cup of tea, but that doesn't make me creative.

Creativity is not instrumental. It has no definite purpose except to satisfy itself. It is something that is done for the sake of doing it and as soon as a system for rating it is established, a mark or a percentage, it is no longer creativity but problem solving. When one writes a creative essay at school one is solving the problem of passing by writing a story that resembles a piece of literature that was once successful. long, complicated adjectives and deep, clichéd metaphors.

We do this because it is what the system demands of us. Teachers look for things that are emotional, or something thrilling, or something old written in a new way. The last thing they're looking for is something different.

The problem is this: the act of forcing someone to write something creative kills creativity immediately. That person will start thinking of things that have been creative in the past and imitate it. Creativity dies, as soon as someone says: "Let's get creative!"

The reason why teachers usually don't reward truly creative essays is because they usually aren't that good. A truly creative essay would be one that was written by wrapping a pen in paper and throwing it repeatedly against the wall, though it probably wouldn't win any 'Week of the Writer' Awards. In evolution, the next generation of a certain species will be a slight mutation of the last. That mutation could be anything from new opposable thumbs to backwards knee-caps. Mother nature, being the wise old lady that she is, would kill off the backward-kneed creative by making a large front-kneed predator with a large rock that he discovered he could now pick up, and then go on to reproduce and have lots of babies who can also pick up rocks and play the guitar. Ideas work in the same way. They are mutations of known ideas that may be amazing and innovative, like The Simpsons, or hideously unattractive, like Crocs. The only way a new idea can flourish is by appealing to the masses. The problem with the masses is that they are extremely dull and don't seem to know what they like. What they like is what they're used to and it will take something extremely shiny to change their minds about what impresses them. This is the reason why we, the students, would rather write something old than something new. Being creative is too risky.

Another widely accepted definition of creativity says that it is the act of doing or creating something that opposes the status quo. An example of that can be seen by taking a look into the past. The best music was produced during times of war and oppression. This is because the musicians were opposing their governments and their conservative parents. These days there is very little to fight against and as a result the quality of creative products has decreased. Just look at the art from apartheid and compare it to the art of the 'New' South Africa. The old stuff, while shocking, is always creative. The new stuff tends to be about how happy we all are and how beautiful the "azure African skies" are. I'm sure artists are delighted that Zuma has been elected; now finally they can reach for their brushes! At school there is much to oppose in a 'creative essay', but this would not be a shrewd move considering the ones who mark them are the opposition.

The only way I can see of opposing the established, institutionalised form of writing that has become what we ironically call the 'creative essay' is by disproving its creative nature. This seems to be well and good but on further inspection we see a paradox emerging. By opposing the 'creative essay', as the above paragraph tells us, I am being creative, but this is precisely what I proved to be impossible. By proving it I have disproved it. Now that's creative!