Creativity in Communication — “Color It Up”
— The Journey of being happy (Chapter 4)
This story is about a journey of a girl who was seeking happiness and meaning in life. The trip starts at the known to discover the unknowns.
In the previous chapter, the girl learned about New and Meaningful in Creativity — Finding happiness. Let’s discover what next she could remember in her journey.
Son was quite surprised and happy since she asked him to paint together. He nodded, of course, because he admired her talent. And because he liked her a lot. But she was too busy in her lonely world. She never knew that he always looked at her from behind.
The girl was interested in the color of happiness. The boy was good at coloring things. She would use a pencil to sketch happiness as in her imagination. He would help her to color them up.
Once, he asked her: “Why does happiness look like a sun?”
She was shy to tell him her thoughts, she looked at him and moved her eyes to the garden where the sun showed its last shine of day, she said: “Happiness is warm as the sun.”
They have a foundation as a domain where creativity could emerge. They identified what they could do best.
Communication helped them understand each other and get the same goal in the end because it harmonizes any single contribution adapted to the task of the “creaplex.”
It was tough for her to imagine an abstract thing like happiness. She wanted to give up several times. But her will for a change was strong enough to motivate herself. Working in a team made everything more exciting but also so difficult for her. She hated to share her ideas, she did not know why he colored it blue, but in art, everything is possible.
She asked him: “What does blue mean?” He said: “It is hope. Black is the shadow, and here are the lights. In each position of lights, you will see happiness differently, and you can stand upon the shadow to look for happiness.” He explained to her and asked her to join him color them. She agreed, and for the first time, she had drawn and thought that way. She asked him, “Are you afraid that colors would not match with each other?”
He said, “Of course I am, but sometimes we have to take the risk to be creative. Don’t worry, as long as your box is stable enough to create more things upon that box”. The girl smiled. They were talking, drawing, and laughing together. The warmth seemed to be back onto her.
He said, “Of course I am, but sometimes we have to take the risk to be creative. Don’t worry, as long as your box is stable enough to create more things upon that box”. The girl smiled. They were talking, drawing, and laughing together. She felt the warmth back to her.
And finally, she knew what happiness was. The boy asked her: “Did you find out your joy?” She said: “Yes, happiness is right on my hand. And you? What is your happiness?”
He had been silent for minutes. Then he looked at her eyes: “It was the moment when you talked to me.”
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2015). The systems model of creativity: The collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Dordrecht: Springer
Sonnenburg S. (2004). Creativity in communication: a theoretical framework for collaborative product creation. USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
