You Are A Creative. I Promise.

I am blond, fair-skinned, skinny, stompy-legged (in my family, we call our legs "potato stompers"), and creative.

Can you see the problem with this description?

As far as descriptions go, it isn't the most inaccurate summary of me. That honour belongs to the shockingly recent "some twelve-year-old with a grudge" line from an unmentionable source. I am neither twelve, nor do I do grudges. The former is apparent from the deep wrinkles in my forehead. The latter is a desperate prevention attempt to escape more ghastly forehead wrinkles.

The problem with the above description of me isn't accuracy. It's that it includes the moniker "creative". As if "creativity" were some physical attribute right along with hair colour, dress size, and ear diameter.

It's not.

We say "being creative" when we really should be saying "making new things, you know, creating stuff, goddess style, out of rainwater, scraps, and thin air".

Creative is an adjective, but it really shouldn't be. It should only be a verb. And perhaps a noun. I mean, "creation" has a nice ring to it. "Look at my creation", you'll exclaim, pointing at your latest attempt at abstract cupcake art. Yeah. A noun would be helpful for moments like that.

But mostly, creative is a verb. As in "to create something (or even whole SOMEONE)". If you want to be creative, or even more grandiosely, "a creative", all you have to do is make things that were not there before. That's all.

You can be creative when you cook and add a new spice to the tomato sauce or do the laundry and add a dark sock to the whites. Both can yield unexpected results that can lead to delight or despair. You can be a creative by doing an activity traditionally associated with creating, such as writing, drawing, building things with legos or becoming a Minecraft nut. You can also be a creative doing anything else. You can apply creativity as a scientist, an accountant (an unexpectedly creative profession), a parent, a gamer...

The difference between "creatives" and "non-creatives" is merely that creatives make things while non-creatives don't. Sometimes they make whole new things from scratch. Sometimes, they add a little twist to something that's already there. They improve a process, decorate a hallway, or find a better way to play a healer 5v5s in World of Warcraft.

And as humans, it is almost impossible not to make things. It's what we do naturally. Even if all we make is just coffee in the morning and a particularly fluffy mountain of whipped cream on our dessert. We make things—all the time.

We create.

We are creative.

Sometimes, we just don't realise it.