“Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.” – – Wikipedia
“Leonardo da Vinci, was an Italian polymath. His areas of strength included painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, invention, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.” – – Wikipedia
What happened to the world of modern creativity? How did we end up becoming so boxed in with our approach to creation and creative work? If you ask someone today what they do for a living, or what their hobbies are, they will probably reply with something along the lines of, “I’m a graphic designer… and I play games”… Nice, yeah, and I like to party.

Come on creatives! What happened to the time when creatives were not constrained by some label of style or genre? Why can’t you be both a painter and physicist, both writer and musician? There was a time when people were simply broken down into genius and normal. Now that we have the influence and fountain of knowledge called the internet, should you be considered “normal” or “genius”?

When I was a child I drew many pictures, and some comics. Thank goodness I figured out growing up that I am not really very good at it, but I still did it, and it was fun. I later moved on to writing music and poems, did an amateur recording of my own songs at varsity. As much fun as that was, I am not just a musician, I also want to write a book, and therefore, once I’m done, hopefully I will be able to say I am a writer. What’s next? Maybe game designer, who knows.

The point of the matter is that you are probably way more creative than you either tell yourself, or you let the world tell you. I can’t believe that someone who is smart enough to create beautiful visual art is not able to also create art via audio, literature, sculpting or whichever their preference is. I made the mistake at some point to call myself a musician, at another point I made the mistake of calling myself a programmer.

But now? Now I decided that, going forward, I will simply call myself a creative. I create, different things at different times in my life. Sometimes it’s code, sometimes it’s solutions to problems, sometimes it’s fantasy or science fiction. What ever you create becomes a new world in itself: So if you already wrote a soundtrack for your world, why not paint the clouds for it as well? Why not write the languages? Draw the maps?

Your mind is your canvas. Draw, paint, write, imagine, be creative.