I just watched an episode of a television series in which two characters were trapped in the Antarctic.  A rescue mission was being sent from a base some fifty miles away, and soon we see the rescuers arriving to save them.  Amazingly enough, with the rescuers arrive the characters who had contacted them, who somehow had made it from Colorado to the Antarctic in the same amount of time as the people who had come from fifty miles away.

There is most definitely a dearth of creativity in the world of entertainment these days, and since most of us are exposed to that world very often, we're constantly being exposed to pretty lame excuses for creativity.  Movies that otherwise are pretty good end with stupid shooting scenes in which the heroes aren't hit by a single bullet even though thirty men are shooting at them--but they kill all thirty of the other guys.  Someone who's a college professor gets involved in a chase with criminals or the police, and somehow navigates the crowded streets of a major city better than a race car driver could.  People who are otherwise intelligent walk stupidly into situations--or dark rooms--even though they know someone else just got killed there.

I guess this isn't really such a big deal, but I think it does affect us in negative ways.  It's kind of like being desensitized to violence--since we see so much of this poorly made stuff that's supposed to be creative and artistic, we start to believe that this stuff really is creative.  But it's not--it's simply poorly trained people trying to give audiences what they think they want, which really ends up being stuff that's already been seen in other movies or on other TV shows, or that's already been read in other books or stories.

Creativity, though, comes from our hearts, and is not determined by what people want to see.  Our creativity is a reflection of our spirits, if we truly allow our spirits to shine through in all that we do.  Don't give your own creativity short shrift--nurture it and develop it, accept it and love it.  That way, you'll allow yourself to be creative, rather than just creating copies of things that other people already have done.  And if you ever make a decent movie, find a creative way to end it rather than depending on formulas to end the movie for you.  You'll be proud when you do, and many people will appreciate seeing something new and different--for a change.

Creativity requires the courage
to let go of certainties.

Erich Fromm