BLOG POST 13: Unleash your Creativity - PART II

Below is an exercise the author has advised and I loved answering the beautiful questions. Please do read if you are interested to know more about me and try giving these questions your own version of answers.

My creative Autobiography:

1.     What is the first creative moment you remember? The first creative moment I remember is when I had been preparing a piece for my third grade electronic keyboard examination. My music teacher had instructed me to put in some of my own variations to the original music. I practiced and practiced and found that changing the pitch somewhere in the middle of the made my music sound different.

2.     Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it? I had been praised and even was made to perform in front of a group of students. My music teacher appreciated me and even still remembers me.

3.     What is the best idea you’ve ever had? The best idea I’ve ever had was the story plot between a husband and a wife

4.     What made it great in your mind? It felt great to me because I had my own version of a story to share and it would have been unique.

5.     What is the dumbest idea? The dumbest idea I’ve ever had was to join for a singing audition

6.     What made it stupid? It was a stupid idea because I sang terribly that day

7.     Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea? I thought of trying singing because I sang at my church and I had a good voice.

8.     What is your Creative ambition? My creative ambition is to write a self-help book from my experiences

9.     What are the obstacles to this ambition? I don’t write sentences in proper structured format. Sometimes I am not satisfied with my writing. I feel I write things are unnecessary and could have been avoided.

10.  What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition? In order to achieve this ambition I have to spend more time on reading self-help books from various authors. I have to make an effort to write something on my own every day.

11.  How do you begin your day? I usually begin my day scrolling through instagram feed and then reading books related to my degree.

12.  What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat? I have the habit of wasting my time on a lot of applications that are on my phone. Most of the days I would be scrolling through my instagram, facebook or youtube and wouldn’t even realise time passing.

13.  Describe your first successful creative act? My first ever creative act was drawing for a competition in school on the theme ‘windy day’. That was the first time I ever attempted drawing something out of my mind and I was impressed with my work. I bagged second prize for that drawing at school level

14.  Describe your second successful creative act? My second successful creative act was when I played the background music for the song ‘Heal the world’. I remember sitting in a room and singing along with the music myself a huge number of times just to get the beat and the pitch right. I was proud of myself when we got first prize for that group song because I never thought I could ever do such things.

15.  Compare them. The results I obtained from both of the above were from my own thinking box. The only difference is that, I’ve been trained in keyboard since a very young age whereas I have no basic knowledge in drawing or art.

16.  What are your attitudes toward: money, power, praise, rivals, work, play. To me money is something that keeps coming and going. Like Sudha Murthy rightly quoted – ‘You are only the trustee of money and it always changes hands’. Money should be just enough such that we have enough to live and help others. Power is in other words ‘influence’. According to me, power comes to us over time as we do more and more work for the benefit of others. Praise – Who doesn’t love to be praised? Everybody loves to hear a word of praise for the work they do. That’s what keeps everybody running. Rivals- No matter how good you are, you will always have a rival. You may be ripest juiciest peach in the world and still there’s going to be somebody who hates peaches. Work- All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Our work makes us unique but even too much of work can be tiring. Play- playing is essential to relax our mind and to make us more energetic.

17.  Which artists do you admire most? I admire Khaled Hosseini, Dale Carnegie, Preeti Shenoy.

18.  Why are they your role models? I admire Khaled Hosseini for the intricate details he gives to describe each situation or scenario in his book. Also the plot twist he brings to his story sometimes makes my hair stand because they are always so unexpected. I admire Dale Carnegie for the beautiful books he has written. Many situations described in his books are relatable. I follow Preeti Shenoy on Instagram and admire her for the consistency in her work. She’s particular about what she wants to start her day with. She writes fiction but her stories are always so relatable to human life.

19.  What do you and your role models have in common? I would love my work to be intricate and give delicate attention to every word. I would also love if my book would help someone in their life.

20.  Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you? Yes, my father. He never did his schooling much well. By eighteen, he moved to Bombay risking all his comfort to find a job. He lived along with ten other people in small quarters. He did diploma courses to survive through jobs and then saved up all his hard earned money to come back to home. He’s retired but is always trying to learn something new. If today it’s planting tomato seeds, tomorrow it’s cooking parathas. If today it’s fixing a fan, tomorrow he’s doing some plumbing work. He inspires me to ‘Never stop learning’.

21.  Who is your muse? My muse is Preeti Shenoy. When I read her books first, I wanted to write one like them.

22.  Define muse - A person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.

23.  When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond? When confronted with a superior intelligence or talent, it’s usually my habit to give up and just sit and admire them.

24.  When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness or indifference in others, how do you respond? Stupidity: Try to talk some sense into them, hostility: respond with love, intransigence: Let them be, laziness: just ignore, indifference: react.

25.  When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond? I am usually extremely excited about impending successes in my life and feel proud of them. I wear them like a mark of honour. In case of threat of an impending failure, I confine myself inside a chrysalis. I would always be worrying about what’s about to happen.

26.  When you work, do you love the process or the result? To be truthful, I always love the result more than the process.

27.  At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp? When I’m writing something on my own. I have a lot of ideas that come up in my mind randomly to write stories. However, when I sit to write I’m not able to put into words what I actually want to.

28.  What is your ideal creative activity? My ideal creative activity is writing.

29.  What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is being mocked or made fun of.

30.  What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening? The likelihood of me writing a book is 60/100. The likelihood of me having to confront my greatest fear is 20/100.

31.  Which of your answers would you most like to change? I would like to change the answer to (23) because when faced with a superior intelligence or talent, I do not want to give up on my piece of work.

32.  What is your idea of misery? Misery to me is to be unhappy in all spheres of life. When you are not happy about anything or anyone, you lose the desire to live and that’s when you fail as a human.

33.  What is your greatest dream? My greatest dream is to write a book one day that will touch a million hearts and let them know that they weren’t alone in the rat-race called life.

Click to read Part III - Unleash your Creativity continued