We often talk about creativity as though it arrives in significant moments.
- The brilliant idea.
- The breakthrough.
- The award-winning project.
- The finished artwork.
But most creativity is much smaller than that.
Creativity research distinguishes extraordinary creative achievement from everyday creativity — the ordinary ways people experiment, problem-solve, adapt and make something personally meaningful.
This idea became important in my own research.
I started thinking about collecting little c's: small moments of experimentation, curiosity, insight and creative action that gradually accumulate into confidence.
- Draw something.
- Try a different tool.
- Rearrange a page.
- Notice an interesting sign.
- Ask a strange question.
- Photograph a texture.
- Make a connection between two ideas.
- Write something down before it disappears.
None of these things needs to produce a portfolio piece.
Their value lies in the act itself.
This feels particularly important in the age of generative AI because AI is strongly oriented towards outputs.
- We ask for something and receive something.
- Often something surprisingly accomplished.
Little-c creativity asks us to pay attention to another part of creativity:
participation.
- The small creative decision made by the person.
- The moment of experimentation.
- The decision to try rather than know.
The confidence built by discovering:
I can do something with this.
So perhaps the important question isn't simply whether AI makes us more or less creative.
It may be:
Are we still collecting our little c's?
Because creative identity is unlikely to come from one spectacular output.
It grows through repeated experiences of noticing, making, choosing and discovering that we have ideas worth pursuing.