enjoying the struggle

If someone is creative, does it mean he/she is also talented? For that matter, if someone is talented, does it mean he/she is creative? Can you have one without the other and still produce good design?

I'm sure these questions have been posed by many design students before me, but I'm really wondering how closely the two go together. There are very talented individuals at PC (and all over the world) who can cut really well with exacto blades and draw perfect thumbnail sketches--but are these people really creative? Which begs the question: what makes someone creative? Am i creative?

If you break the word down, the root word is create, and suffix means to be able to. So you could say that being creative is having the ability to create. This leads me to believe that everyone is creative, meaning everyone has the ability to create something--be it a work of art, a spreadsheet with pie charts, or even another human being. I suppose that's where talent comes in. It takes talent to enhance the ability to create.

Talent, by definition is a natural ability or aptitude. So if talent is natural, can it be taken beyond what naturally exists? I suppose the answer is yes--that's why I'm a student of design--to take my natural ability, and enhance it to a point that it supersedes itself. And this is done by practicing. Well what the fuck does practicing mean? Repeating the same action over and over expecting different results? I guess. Are the next two years of my life going to be all about practicing and getting better?

It's like when you train for a marathon you have to run every day; even if it's just a short distance. The point is to condition your body to accept a certain level of stress. With each run your body gets a little bit more conditioned so that you're able to run longer distances, or short distances faster. Some runs are good and some aren't so good. There are days when you walk, and days where you're able to sprint for a little bit. Being a PC student is exactly like that.

It's all a big struggle. And I'm sure it won't stop after the two-year program at PC. I think that's the point. I like to think that from struggle comes victory. Sometime you're struggling and sometimes your victorious. It's a sick little cycle that can easily fuck up your mind. I've experienced this mind-fuck in my own life several times--hence the name of this blog: fall and recovery. We all fall but not all of us recover.

I am very thankful for the struggles that I've experienced in my life up to this point. Because resilience is born from those struggles. And it's that resilience that will carry me through all of my life's struggles--including the next two years at PC.