Creativity & Imagination

In my songwriting class we were assigned to watch this video of John Cleese giving a speech on creativity in 1991. I will link the video at the bottom of my essay.

“…creativity isn’t a talent… it’s a way of operating.” – John Cleese

Creativity is not just some lightning strike reserved for the lucky or the chosen. It isn’t some mysterious force that blesses a few while leaving the rest of us in gray mediocrity. It isn’t about IQ, it isn’t pedigree, and it isn’t chance. It is a way of moving through the world … a way of operating.

Most of us don’t live that way. We live (semi-consistently on average) in what Cleese calls, the “closed mode.” That place where everything is urgent, where lists are endless, where deadlines feel like shackles. It’s the mode of survival … useful, yes, but suffocating. In closed mode, we grip life too tightly. We measure everything by productivity, efficiency, accomplishment. And in doing so, we choke out the very thing that makes us feel alive: our own imagination. (I like to think of creativity as a product of imagination

The “open mode” is something else entirely. It’s looser, softer, more forgiving. It’s a state of play, curiosity, and possibility. It doesn’t demand an immediate answer. It doesn’t shame you for not knowing. It lets you wander without apology. It’s childlike … not in the sense of being naïve, but in the sense of being unafraid to ask “what if?” and mean it. The open mode doesn’t insist on purpose… it delights in exploration. That’s where creativity truly breathes.

…Cleese gives the example of Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin only because he noticed what others would have thrown away… a simple petri dish where nothing had grown. In closed mode, it would have been trash. In open mode, it became a miracle. Creativity often hides in what looks like failure, sometimes in the detail that irritates us, or in the mistake that bruises our self-esteem. But if we can stay open long enough, even disappointment can reveal a clue. That… is why… I (almost) never get bored.. and why my husband like to tell me that I am, “easily entertained”.

Alfred Hitchcock knew this too. When writing sessions grew tense and unproductive, he would stop everything to tell a funny story. It wasn’t laziness (though it may have been thought to be a few times, I am sure) it was wisdom. Humor disarms fear. Laughter reopens the door to wonder. And without wonder, creativity dies.

As I write this I think of my husband who is perhaps one of the funniest humans I personally know. Knowing him for 11 years now and being married almost 3, I have blossomed in many ways due to his presence and interactions with him. He probably doesn't even know it because I have never told him… Simply because I never knew how to even express such a feeling and thought. Hence why I am writing this all out. During funerals, the death of his father, my almost sister-in-law being hit and killed by a drunk driver, having to put my first and very precious dog down… This man has consistently created moments where even when the situation was filled with grief, longing, ache and heartbreak… he interwove his comedy, smile, laugh, joy and comforting abilities into the chaos, creating a steady and wholesome net for I and others to fall into and rest. I often try to think of ways to do the same for him… but I fail consistently and pretty significantly. That does not mean I will give up of course. And I have my own way of utilizing my open mind. He is more like a poem than I, the writer, is. He stirs souls and brightens moods. I stay quiet, analyze people and environments and then write about everything. He is the active diffuser. I am the wife of the diffuser.

So… how do we find this open mode in our own lives? Cleese suggests five conditions… space, time, patience, confidence, and humor.

Space: You need a place where you can shut out the noise of ordinary life. Somewhere you can hear your own thoughts without interruption.

Time: Not just scraps of minutes squeezed in between obligations, but real, dedicated time. It takes the mind a while to unclench. Creativity doesn’t arrive on command; it waits until the pressure eases.

Patience: The courage to sit with uncertainty longer than is comfortable. Most people rush to the first solution just to quiet the discomfort. But the most creative among us endure the agitation of not-knowing, and that patience allows something deeper, more original to surface.

Confidence: The willingness to be wrong. To be messy, illogical, even ridiculous. Play requires freedom from judgment. If you’re terrified of making a mistake, you’ll never risk discovery.

Humor: Perhaps the most underrated of all. Humor is the shortcut from the closed mode to the open one. It keeps us loose. It allows us to look sideways at problems, to see fresh angles. And it reminds us not to take life too seriously … because none of us gets out of it alive anyway.

This part stings for me: creativity, though powerful, is fragile. One voice of criticism, one atmosphere of judgment, can suffocate it instantly. That’s why safe, trusting groups often create more brilliance than any solitary genius. Trust gives us permission to play. Criticism, especially too soon, kills the impulse before it can grow.

At its heart, creativity is about connection. It’s about taking two seemingly separate things … an idea and an accident, a question and a laugh, a shadow and a light … and bringing them together into something new. Something alive with meaning.

And maybe this is the deepest truth of all… creativity is not about brilliance. It is about making space for brilliance to show up. It is not about having all the answers. It is about daring to stay open long enough for the answers to come.

Creativity is not rare. It’s not unreachable. It is already within us. What we need is not more talent, but more courage to make room for it.