Our self-assignment to a specific group influences our creative spirit.
“If given the choice, would you rather room with a creative person or with a smart person?” was a question I posed to my undergraduate students at the start of one semester.
Universally, the responses were in favor of “the creative person.” When pressed, students indicated that a creative person would be “more interesting,” “more fun to be with,” “more off the wall,” and “more likely to come up with new and innovative ideas.”
Then, I asked them, “How many of you would consider yourselves to be a creative person?” Nobody raised their hand.
When queried further, they told me that they’ve never been taught to be creative; the standard high school curriculum is based almost exclusively on memorization, rather than creative thinking; school is geared more towards getting good grades (products) than in innovation or creativity (processes); and they’re simply not sure where to begin in order to be creative. Many of them turned to an all-too-common response: “I’m just not a creative person.”
Out of habit, custom, or convenience, we often assign ourselves to the “Creative? Not me!” group. We find comfort in that group simply because there are so many others who have also self-assigned themselves into that body.
To be sure, it’s a substantial and ever-expanding population. We are also on friendly terms with many of the members. We work with them, we live with them, we marry them, we move into neighborhoods with them, and we socialize with them.
If there is, indeed, “safety in numbers,” then our membership in this group is cemented by its very size. It’s “one big happy family.”
We are also a dichotomous society — we often see things in contrasting pairs. We tend to see ourselves as belonging to one group to the exclusion of those folks who belong to an opposing group.
And, once we assume “membership” in one group we assume the features or characteristics of all the other members of that group and shun the characteristics of an opposing group: Democrat vs. Republican; pro-choice vs. pro-life; gun control vs. gun advocate; Coke vs. Pepsi; Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants.
As a society, we also have a tendency, nay a compulsion, to place others into categories. This is, quite often, done for the convenience of identification.
We assign labels to people as a way of understanding them — more specifically, how they are similar to, or (more often) different from, ourselves.
This process begins early in our lives (boys vs. girls; smart vs. dumb) and continues straight through to adulthood (rich vs. poor; liberal vs. conservative).
This predilection to group separates people into categories that are easily recognizable, although not always clearly defined.
As you might imagine, it is also an arena fraught with danger.
Once we assign people — or ourselves — to a group several things happen. First of all, the group (and the members within that group) assume an identity.
A label is placed on them; a label that, over time, achieves a level of permanency. Once you are a member of a recognized group, you seldom escape the inevitable label that goes along with that group.
For example, if you are a “tree hugger”, you will forever and ever be a “tree hugger” — at least as long as you remain in the local community. Once a label has been “assigned,” either by the members of the group or by others not affiliated with the group, it frequently achieves status or permanency.
In fact, you may recall times in your academic life — particularly in elementary school — when you were assigned to a specific reading group (the “Redbirds,” the “Bluebirds,” and the “Yellow Birds” or the “Tigers,” the “Panthers,” and the “Bobcats”).
Teachers often assign students into groups, not only for the sake of convenience, but also for instructional purposes.
The prevailing thinking is that if a teacher has a small group of students with similar academic abilities, she is better able to meet their instructional needs, than if the group was composed of individuals with a wide range of abilities.
The danger, of course, is that once you were a member of a certain group there was little or no upward mobility. In short, if you were assigned to the “Bluebirds” at the beginning of the school year, you (typically) remained a “Bluebird” through the year, irrespective of how well you may have progressed (or not) in your reading skills. Once you have been assigned a reading label, you typically maintain that label for an infinite amount of time. You have achieved a designation that is difficult to alter.
Let’s advance that argument one step further. If, for example, you have assigned yourself as someone who belongs to the “I’m really not creative” group, you tend to view yourself as primarily and permanently uncreative.
The more you self-advocate that label, the more that label becomes a constant part of who you are (in your own eyes). The longer you bemoan your “station” in life as someone who is seldom, if ever, creative, the more that label becomes enduringly attached to your psyche.
The longer it is in place (as determined by others or by yourself) the more difficult it is to escape.
Groups also give us an opportunity to be content. If we have self-assigned ourselves to the “I’m not creative” group, then we have also conveniently protected ourselves from moving beyond the borders of that group into new, and often unfamiliar, territory.
Over time, we have become comfortable, contented, and snug in this group. We have eschewed any desire to move out of the group, not only because we have so many like-minded “associates” in the group, but also because it offers a safe environment in which to work and play.
We have achieved a comfort that is often difficult to overcome and challenging to change. We have labeled ourselves into complacency.