Does Creativity Wither with Age?

The reverse could actually be true, but it depends on how you spend your time.

Tasmania birdy.

If you don’t leave the house, you’ll probably never use Shazam*. Sitting in a café, walking through a shop, or waiting in a hotel lobby means you will hear music you don’t hear at home. Sure, you could try a new playlist while you’re making eggs in your kitchen, but let’s be honest — you know you’re more likely to put on something familiar. Humans are creatures of habit.

(*Shazam is an app on your phone that allows you to identify songs instantly by using the device’s microphone to record a few seconds of audio. I love it.)

When you’re sitting in that café, you’re not in control of the playlist, and that’s a good thing. A song you’ve never heard before might come on that you absolutely love. Shazam it. Now you have something NEW in your life and believe it or not, this one song could inspire all kinds of creative work. The lyrics, the instrumentation, the mood … who knows? Whatever hooked you could also conjure up images in your mind that lead to your next comic, painting, novel, or film. It’s not crazy to think that a single song could rev up your creativity engine; artists have been spurred to action by less.

What’s the point? Simply put: creativity is directly tied to new experiences. And most new experiences happen outside the home.

It took me 27 hours to travel from Heidelberg to Hobart. (Image: Miss Tourist)

I am writing this from Hobart, Tasmania. It’s just about the most remote spot on the planet from where I live (reaching the actual farthest spot would require that I be floating in the ocean a few miles south).

I’m here for a new job at Procreate, and that’s clearly enough newness, in itself, to inspire a lot of creative thinking. But let’s set that fact aside for a moment. I want to talk about birds.

Throughout my life, I have heard the same bird sounds, morning and night. The birds in our Heidelberg neighborhood don’t sound much different from the birds in North Carolina (or Taipei, Nicosia, Rennes or anywhere else I’ve lived). Maybe it’s because I have lived the majority of my life above the Tropic of Cancer? I don’t know.

Anyway, the sounds of the birds in my environment have become an indistinct part of the background. I never think about them.

The silver gull Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae and Pacific gull Larus pacificus are native to Tasmania.

But here in Hobart, the birds sound very different. And by simply hearing these strange new sounds, I am suddenly curious about birds, a species that hasn’t been on my radar before. I have been looking in the trees, enthusiastically trying to spot which ones make the specific sounds I hear as I walk down the street, wondering what they are communicating to one another, and looking them up on the internet.

It’s all new to me.

Newness is the thing! And can you guess what I started doodling on my iPad my first day at the Procreate offices? Yup. Birds. I almost never draw birds! But now I want to learn to draw them better, find cool ways to stylize them, and on and on.

New experience = new creative energy.

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Young children are constantly suprised, amazed, confused, and energized by whatever is happening around them. It’s easy to be creative when your life is a daily series of new experiences.

Not so much for you adults. Life becomes mostly a daily blend of ‘been there, done that,’ and this is to be expected: you have literally been there and done that!

Does this mean you are doomed to grow less creative with age?

No! But you must choose to introduce a bit of ‘new’ into your life and do it often. And no, you don’t have to travel to Tasmania. But I do think you have to start by leaving the house.

I already gave the example of hearing new music, which is an easy thing to find when you’re not at home. What else? Here are a few very simple ideas:

• Walk to a place in your area that you’d normally drive. This will force you to notice details in your environment you would miss in a car. You may also have to change the route to one that is more pedestrian-friendly, and this means you will see and hear new things.

• Watch a subtitled movie in a language you have never heard before. It’s amazing to see how different the art of filmmaking can be in the hands of those whose cultures differ greatly from your own, and to hear new voices.

• Have you actually visited the next town over? We so often feel it’s necessary to travel far, far away from homebase to have new experiences, but there may be something wonderful within a 50-mile radius of your front door. (Bring your sketchbook!)

• See if you can find a used bookstore that has older fashion magazines or books, preferably anything from at least 30 years ago or older. Paging through older fashion has multiple benefits: first, there is the great photography. Second, the shapes, colors and patterns in the clothing designs (and the sets and locations) can inspire you to recycle them in interesting ways. And third, some of these fashions will conjure up strong visual memories for many of you, and memories are valuable creative resources. Clothing from the past can remind you of older relatives, of your own earlier years, of certain places — these may be memories you would not have accessed without the visual reference.

In the subheading of this piece, I wrote that one could actually get more creative with age. I absolutely believe this is possible, but the key is to accumulate a veritable mountain of new and different experiences, big and small, as you age. Less is not more. Here, the adults have the advantage; the older you get, the more years you have under your belt (if you choose to seek out the new!) that are packed with places, people, ideas, conversations, art, music, and so on. In other words, you have more of everything to draw on when making your work.

Or, you could just find a comfortable routine and stick to it for fifty years. Your choice!

🌟In case you’re wondering, here are the five most recent songs I Shazamed (I guess that’s a verb now):

1. The Kill, by Maggie Rogers (Rock, I guess?)

2. West Coast, by Coconut Records (Rock/Pop)

3. Dream Feeling, by Moxy. (Synthwave)

4. Experience, by Victoria Monét (Dance/R&B)

5. Great Southern Land, by ICEHOUSE (Pop)

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Quick thank you to those of you who recently chose to upgrade to a paid subscription. It means a lot and I’m glad you like my writing enough to support this project with your hard-earned money.

Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other, remember to be kind, and I’ll say, Ciao for now.

Kyle (find me here, here, here, and here) // Download my app here

PS - Because I don’t have my recording equipment here in Tasmania, audio recordings of this issue (and the previous one) will be sent to paying subscribers when I return to Germany after next week. Thanks for your patience and continued support!