I’ve added the element of standards to the definition, as it was missing. It now reads: »Creatives are people who, fueled by an inner drive and their own ideas, create something new (tangible or intangible) according to their personal standards and become fully absorbed in the process.« To test this, I formulated three questions:

1. Do you tend to agree or not?
2. Have you considered yourself a creative person until now?
3. Based on this definition, would you classify yourself as a creative person?

This went out via WhatsApp to three fellow students, a group, and my status. Anyone who sees it and feels called to respond is welcome to. The beauty of this is that I know the respondents at least a little, so I can test whether their answers align with my own assessment. The first two responses come from men who agree; they hadn’t considered themselves creative before but do so now according to this definition. Wonderful—I know a bit about what these two do and what they tinker with in their spare time, and I consider both of them creative. But just not in the commonly used sense, as one of them writes: »For me, being creative was always more like making your own music, painting or drawing, maybe decorating your apartment nicely.«

One fellow student questions whether ideas are truly one’s own; another (who also knits) thinks you can be creative even when following instructions and that it’s relaxing. A professional creative describes creativity as »a vibration; it stands for self-empowerment & creative power.« He also points out the community of others »infected by ideas.« It’s noted that children are creative even though they know nothing of the definition, and for them, »seeing themselves as creative« is secondary. Exciting. In the discussion earlier, I had interjected that, in my opinion, »seeing yourself as creative« is important for one’s own identity, and I’m now articulating it such that children are simply still in the process of forming their identity by trying things out. Seems logical to me.

One person writes: »My creativity feels more like something from the outside pulling me away from myself. More like an obsession that doesn’t come from deep within.« He believes most creatives »won’t become absorbed in their doing. The dissatisfaction (which comes from within) drives them to new action. The ideas are more abstract; they can fly in or interconnect.« And further: »Maybe there are a few truly brilliant people for whom the ideas come deeply, virtually out of nowhere. That can then have the force to change the world [new message] It will likely happen rarely [new message] But even the from within part, I see more as something divine, indeterminate, hard to grasp.«

Reading this makes me sad. I offer to lend him the German version of Csíkszentmihályi’s Creativity, which is called something like Flow and Creativity: How to overcome your limits to make the impossible possible (I had ordered both the German and English versions because the lousily translated German title sounded like a completely different book to me …). He replies: »I’d be happy if I could just have some peace from the limits and the impossible. Honestly, they harass me constantly [new message] Sometimes it feels like uninvited guests…. Write a book next about what kind of exorcism gets rid of this stuff!« (All quoted from private messenger correspondence, see Borne 2.)

Perhaps a few more answers will come, but I’m already highly satisfied. As a working hypothesis, my definition is good enough. I want to research further; I find it so exciting —the German word for ‘exciting’ is spannend. It literally means ‘full of tension.’ It is tense in the truest sense of the word, because the poles of relaxation (the release of tension) and obsession have surfaced. Two poles, both of which feel very familiar to me. In that last description, calling for an exorcism because the ideas come uninvited from the outside while the dissatisfaction comes from within, I find myself completely. I found myself completely. To be honest, it is the foundation of this thesis, because that is how I have perceived my own creativity for most of my life. Thinking of myself as a total freak because I parade through the house in the morning with an imaginary tricorne hat instead of just relaxing or doing something useful. Great inspirations out of nowhere that I—the oaf, the idiot, the fool in all my inability and manifold deficits—couldn’t possibly implement anyway. I would have loved to just be normal for once, to finally have some peace from the demons.

Now, after these last few months full of strange puzzle pieces and the completely insane, obsessed work on this Fool’s project, I see it differently. Where the spark comes from (Magician? Fruit tree? Sun? Eyjafjallajökull? Prometheus?) doesn’t matter—but the fire that results from it burns on the inside. Ignoring fire and leaving it unattended is not a good idea. It burns. Look at it. Wildly stamping on it doesn’t help; trying to blow it out only makes everything worse, more painful, more consuming, more destructive. If you throw a rug over it and smother it, it goes out and you eventually freeze or starve to death. Ally yourself with the fire. Use it for yourself. Apply it. Forge something, bake something. Warm yourself by it and let it shine brightly outward, so that the ships find their way past Scylla and Charybdis.*

Or something like that. I still can’t describe it more concretely; interestingly, it remains a matter of images and stories. But we’re only at the end of the first act; two are still missing.