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Tiffany "Tiffy" Hammond's avatar

I remember one time I shared a post on IG about asking my son to teach me to draw something. And he said something like, “how did you forget?” “I can teach you to draw but why did you forget how to?” And he didn’t think about how profound that was at the time, but it was. I think we are all creative but the demands of life can put out that light. We become too focused on surviving. Once we become adults it’s as if most things that are considered creative are also considered “child’s play.” A hobby? Something to do on the side? The weekend? But never something one works deliberately at.

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Sandra Coral's avatar

I remember that!! That was profound and that’s a big part of my point. Why are we forced to survive se we can’t create? What would change if we could live beyond survival? Oppression messes with our imagination, seeing possibilities and what could be different. We’re still creative but it becomes so inaccessible to so many of us. We need to be thinking like Josiah abt why that is. These ND strength lists that talk about creativity like this always seem to suggest that our creativity would be helpful in the systems to uphold white supremacy rather than what we need to be doing which is dismantling it. If we saw this as part of being human it wouldn’t be “strength” but we’d be asking questions like Josiah instead.

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Liz Lewis's avatar

I always say - if you're gifted in some way, creatively or whatever, you would be gifted even if you were not neurodivergent. It's part of who you are. Not because*** of your neurotype.

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Sandra Coral's avatar

True. I’ve been thinking on that a lot lately on how ND Strengths lists are problematic in so many ways. The main thing for me abt creativity is that it’s a skill that can be developed but it’s also innate in all ppl. Are we saying we’re more creative bc it’s being compared alongside ppl who think and do things differently than many of us might? That may be creative but maybe it just makes us different, and different shouldn’t be a bad word.

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Oish's avatar

Omg sandra I can’t wait to hear more thoughts on this if you end up sharing them - because your laser intersectional matrix views are 10000% obvs gonna be revelatory, as is this - because yes you’re articulating the whole icky icky thing of - like, it confuses me if anything because I guess the thing ur describing of “excusing the parts of ND society hates” relates to how stressed I feel that so many “super prolific creative people” ARENT / weren’t ND - like , is a non ND creative person then “better” their ND counterpart??? And also WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOCIETY DOESNT GIVE A SHIT about the kind of creativity that ND person manifests - when my creativity makes me restrategise and reinvent the wheel every single time I do ANYTHING basic, no one is patting me on the back or giivng me innovation awards - they’re sighing, critsising, or at best, tolerating - ggagahhhhz . Thank you for posting this, I’ve long found it depressing the whole “creative” thing ESPESH given it’s got me absolutely nowhere in jobs and companies that claim to “thrive on creativity and innovation” fuck their narrow definition of those words! Xxxx

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Sandra Coral's avatar

That’s another point I didn’t think of, the narrow definition of creativity, but I think it connects to what I’m thinking too because it’s creative if it upholds the expectations of capitalism/ white supremacy/ patriarchy. So when ND ppl are like, NDs are creative, it’s got a whole “we can use our creativity to help uphold systems better” energy and that just sits funny. Cuz why else you gotta say it’s a strength? Especially as you said, you got no applause for being creative when working around the system, which is what we do.

I think about how no one seems to talk about is that creativity is in all of us but at some point ppl stop feeling creative? I think this is bc of how this society dehumanises us, forcing us to conform. Sir Ken Robinson talked about how schools kill creativity, and I think it’s really important to look at how we can ensure children stay connected to their body, their humanness and what’s contributing to them growing into adults that don’t feel connected to the creativity. How much could change in the world if more ppl felt their creativity was valuable too!

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Oish's avatar

I need to put my phone down but this is too addictive no u know what FUCK TURNING YOUR GIfts hitting me at a right moment into a bad thing. Sorry. No. What’s addictive is society telling me I need to fix myself fuckiNG now. Your posts are here for me. They’ll be ehre. As slow as acoidabrly as I need to go. Thank you & smxanr can’t fucking wait to read xxxxxx

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