Creativity, Resilience, Lockdowns.

Here we go again. Another lockdown. If you’re not in Melbourne or Victoria, it’s really hard to convey the toll this takes on your mental health. It’s like someone continually leaves dog shit on your doorstep.

I visited Brisbane a few months ago and it actually felt like I had briefly landed in another country. Like Spain in the Summertime. The contrast was as stark as if everyone was speaking Spanish to me.

Through this, Melburnians have had to be resilient on a grand scale. To ride St.Kilda’s Luna Park roller coaster every day, not knowing where the peaks and dips appear. You’re ‘free’ then you’re not. On and off. Again and again.

For creativity to flourish, internal confidence is vital. But it’s bloody hard to be confident when there is so much uncertainty. One step forward. One step back. Peak. Dip. Ugh.

It’s worth remembering, however, that human creativity and ingenuity were two of the most surprising outcomes of Pandemic Part I (2020). It relied on us adjusting, adapting, and experimenting. And we did. In our hundreds of thousands in Melbourne, and millions across the country and the world.

So with the news of restrictions again being placed upon us, here are my three suggestions on how to try and maintain a creative mindset.

1.Embrace the Shock.

One of the hardest things to adjust to is how quickly things are moving. At the start of this week in Melbourne, the sun was out and there was a strong sense of normality.

Now it feels like we are back in the winter of 2020. The truth is of course that we actually aren’t, and we’re all hoping this outbreak will be under control soon. But if you don’t recognise this lockdown for what it actually is — just a short-term circuit breaker — you can allow the demons of last year to surface.

Acknowledging this is a shock, but it’s also temporary, can reset your reality. Instead of trying to downplay the shock, let it have its moment. Suppressing it won’t help you. Give yourself time to lean into it. So then you can move through it.

2. Focus on what you can do, rather than what you can’t.

‘Lockdown’ is a terribly placed word and I wish Governments wouldn’t use it. It gives the impression we are under arrest or that the prison warden is about to come along and lock our cells and deprive us of our freedom. We are neither of these things. We are restricted in the physical movement for sure, but that is but one aspect of what’s happening.

Creative thinking’s most intimate dance partner is possibility. Imagining what can be, rather than focusing on what can’t. Being able to see the light in the dark.

To be able to look around you and see what is actually possible is much more productive than allowing the ‘restrictions’ to cloud your view.

As an example, exercise has been proven to increase stimulus for creative flow, and for thinking of different solutions to existing problems. If you’re like me, this time provides you with a lack of excuse for not prioritising physical activity. The physical fuels the mental, and becomes a cycle of forward-thinking.

Find the things you are able to do — and do them. It will allow you to imagine what else is possible, rather than what is not.

3. In ambiguity comes difference, and in difference comes creativity.

To define creativity, it’s the act of making or producing something that no one has made before. For it to be ‘new’ it doesn’t actually have to be new, but different.

Difference is in the eye of the beholder of course. The test of creativity is familiarity with the concept, product, or even perspective of the person experiencing it for the first time.

Many amazing things have been created when there is ambiguity because it’s not of a fixed position. It’s not right or wrong, black or white. It’s deliberately and even mysteriously appearing as unfamiliar.

Inventor Roger von Oech said: “Take advantage of the ambiguity in the world. Look at something and think what else it might be.”

Channel the ambiguity of the situation you find yourself in and wonder what else it might be. Could this be the time that you start a new project, learn something new, do something differently. What can you create out of something else that already exists?

As Comedian Gilda Radner said “Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is not about knowing, having to change. Taking the moment, making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next…. delicious ambiguity”.

As we embark upon, endure, and maybe even embrace another period of adjustment… remember, Creativity goes on.