The myth of pink hair
The pink hair myth, that’s what my friend Penny calls it. It is the common but erroneous thought that to be creative one must look blatantly artistic. Of course it’s more than pink hair, it can be a lifestyle, you know, wild hair, crazy clothes, clove cigarettes, etc. The ornaments change over the years, but it’s all about looking like a creative person.
Break myths: creativity is not about looking artistic. Yes, artists are creative, but they are all creative! Artists only direct their creativity towards art, whereas an accountant can direct their creativity towards accounting. Creativity can be directed towards any challenge in life, so we could all use a little more creativity, couldn’t we? Every job and every life needs creativity!
I have nothing against Pink Hair, in fact sometimes seeing a very self-expressed person can be fun, even inspiring. But looking like an artist, or expressing yourself extravagantly in clothing, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re more creative than anyone else. Many Pink Hair are trying to be creative according to the stereotype of a creative person. Some Pink Hair folks are thinking that if they look good, the rest will follow. Not necessarily! The thing is, Pink Hair doesn’t make you think more creatively, which is where creativity really begins. Where creativity ends, the point is to think that it gives you ideas. Ideas that lead to solutions for your challenges – your life, your relationships, or your career. Creativity is, after all, a useful novelty, not just a novelty.
I fell prey to the Pink Hair myth in my brief, traumatic and very peak and trough television career. In 1980 I managed to land a classic “creative” job in television production after years of knocking on the door. I immediately stopped wearing standard business clothes and put on jeans and a worn corduroy jacket. Black was cool, so black T-shirts filled my closets. This became my uniform, which didn’t vary much at all, and how creative is that? How was it for me as a creative person? Well, sometimes I was able to come up with great creative ideas and that put me on an emotional level. Other times I just couldn’t and didn’t have the tools or thinking techniques to pull myself out of my creative blocks, and that put me in the wells of depression. At the time I thought the blocks were due to not being committed enough to the creative lifestyle, so I did my best to look and act more creatively – I stopped shaving, drank more, and generally lived the rock and roll lifestyle. I enjoyed the music! I often woke up hungover and still creatively blocked!
What I would like to know then is that creativity is about how you think, not what you wear or how you look. Creativity can be taught, it can be nurtured, encouraged and enhanced, and the way you do it is by changing the way you think.
For example, if I had known that self-criticism was by far the biggest inhibitor of my creativity, I could have let the ideas flow while thinking alone. Instead of being in constant critique and analysis mode, I would just list them. The “on the fly” edition is guaranteed to stop you in your tracks and make you cry in frustration. Having Pink Hair just meant to me that I had higher expectations of myself, so I was even harsher on my desktop publishing than I would have been otherwise! For those looking to get more creative, just defer judgment and start listing ideas!
If you had known how important it is to simply write down ideas, you would have invested in a $ 1.49 notebook and done it. Writing down ideas alone can make a big difference, just by collecting the ideas you have all the time. Most of us assume that we will remember everything we think about. How can we when we have 65,000 thoughts a day? That is the average. Hidden among those 65,000 thoughts are ideas, or at least seeds of ideas that could be of great use to us. Start writing them down, reviewing them, and developing them, and you’ll take the pants off that pink-haired creative girl biting her nails across the hall.
If I had known that alcohol and other so-called mind-altering drugs simply slow down your thinking instead of opening it up, I would have eliminated that insanity. Instead, you could have walked more, breathed deeply, ate healthier foods, and got plenty of rest; those things would have helped me think more creatively. If you want to stimulate your mind, and that’s a good idea, listen to instrumental classical music, or yes, jazz.
If I had known that my creative thinking would have been more productive if it had found ways to surprise me, I would have sought more new experiences. The experiences in which you learn something are the stimulus that the mind needs to help it make more new connections and feed you with good ideas.
So if you really have to wear Pink Hair, more power to you. But while you’re in the salon to dye it, make the decision to think more creatively too – be open, write down your ideas, and seek out new experiences. So not only will it look more creative, it will be more creative.
