Creative Acts in Daily Life

Remember back in primary or even secondary school, we sometimes have these courses or after school enrichment programmes about being creative, or being an entrepreneur etc? Or when we have critical thinking courses (which is SORELY needed these days)?

Well, in recent years I've tried to tap into my own creativity but I don't really know where to begin so I've read some books about being creative and/or writing. To name a few:
1. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
2. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
4. The Creative Act: A way of Being by Rick Rubin

While I'm back on this path of discovering my creativity (or my "one true passion") and stumbling on a few along the way (painting, writing, coffee making, flower arrangement... yeah I know), I never noticed that the daily acts of living are acts of creativity itself.

I was so focused on the grand results of creativity that I barely took time to appreciate the daily acts of creativity. Just the act of folding clothes, making our beds, cleaning up, artfully arranging our living space to reflect our taste... those are definitely acts of creativity.

And for me, one of them is cooking. I've always loved cooking. I know, wah a malay girl liking cooking, must have been instilled from young to serve the husband. Now, now, let's not turn this into a sexism debate. (Although you are probably right, but I'm lucky to have a husband who cooks as well!)

I think cooking is a skill everyone should learn unless they are unable to do so. But for someone who migrated (ouuOOooUUHHH) from Singapore to France, the act of cooking isn't just for fun. It's for survival. But I think the reason I enjoy it so much is because I get the freedom to experiment. And I think that's the point of creativity: to explore, to experiment, to tinker around and figure things out.

Previously, I've talked about how cooking helps me to delay gratification. But I think the whole point of it is to create dishes to my liking. For my enjoyment. Food nourishes, but it's also one of those things that is also pleasurable. I mean, gluttony is a sin, no?

And pleasure comes from consuming good things, beautiful things. It can come from desperation (e.g. intense craving for a specific flavour that's unavailable) and from play (e.g. deciding what to cook based on what we already have).

Challenging myself through cooking has been a huge act of creativity in my life and I'm sure most people who cook for themselves and their loved ones would agree. It's in the choosing which ingredients for a dish. It's in reading a recipe and riffing off it, instead of following it to the tee. It's in tasting as we cook, and deciding what we should add to elevate the flavours. Ratatouille comes to mind.

Did Remy have a recipe? Non. He was FIXING Linguini's mistake. All from his sense of smell and creativity.

I asked my husband once if he was bored of our food, because we use the same few ingredients so surely, they all taste the same right? But no. I think people underestimate the infinite number of combinations you get out of a simple array of 5 ingredients.

I could have cumin, curry powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper, and depending on what I add to the mix, what I serve with the dish, and how I cooked the dish, I could have a multitude of a flavours on the table.

I think about this a lot especially when I read comments about how Koreans cook with the same few ingredients. But anyone who has tasted Korean food would know that there is a whole range of Korean dishes.

So acts of creativity don't need to be grand. They don't need to wow your audience. You are your own audience. You get to enjoy the fruits of your labour. It's our way of using the gift of intelligence that God bestowed upon us. And it can start very, very small, just like Remy.