Gamification of Creativity

You do not need me to tell you that free time is limited. Between school, work, and a slew of other responsibilities, the average person must juggle multitudes. Though the specifics vary, most will agree that we all experience an innate human need to exercise creativity, and develop concepts or construct something that is imaginatively stimulating. 

A perspective that has recently gained traction is the notion that creative hobbies deserve to be invested in even (or especially) if they do not generate income. This draws attention to the idea that time is money. Time spent invested in a certain activity would ideally result in generation of wealth, or, at the very least, not be a money sink. The fiscal implications of time spent are perceived in the context of financial success. Financial success is associated, at the bare minimum, with survival, and at higher levels of achievement, with freedom. 

The view that creative endeavours should be enjoyed outside of a monetarily-focused environment has value. It encourages groups and individuals to build their skills and enjoy inventive thought without the pressure of production. However, I am not writing this to preach that perspective. Instead, I offer a different one; that gamification of creativity has just as much potential to hinder one's abilities as its monetization does.

Bringing us back to the start of this - free time is limited. When we have it, trying to decide what to do with it can be debilitating. Creative activities can be recreational and entertaining, which is desirable, especially when life feels exhausting. 

There are many hobbies in the realm of world-building, visual arts, writing, and design available for purchase at varying levels of cost that offer simplification of a creative skillbuilding process. Build-Your-Own-Anything, for $99.99, in under four hours with clear instructions. This is fun. This fits into the world we understand and have time for. This is ideal. 

It is easier to build and engage with fictional worlds by playing D&D than it is to write a book, or learn to code a video game. It is simpler to find the space and materials to build a cabin in the Sims than in real life. But is it as rewarding? 

I am not saying RPGs, video games, construction kits, or the like are pointless, and people get no beneficial creative experiences out of engaging with them. Rather, I am saying that gamification can be a means to pacify and limit the development of actionable creativity. 

Entertainment, as we are most familiar with it, is a form of consumption. 

Creativity is not necessarily synonymous with entertainment, nor is it inherently antithetical to discipline. 

Throughout history, innovation has been paramount to developing solutions to dangers that have threatened our survival. Over time, when the survival of a given society or individual becomes more secure, creativity shifts to being a commodity rather than a necessity. This is illusory. Creativity is still necessary, and limiting its use to recreation not only has the potential to eat away at the human psyche, but masks the fact that we are not, and never will be done solving problems. 

There is something you are passionate about. There is something you are interested in that requires skills you may not have, and gaining them would not be the easiest use of your free time. Something that requires innovation. Something that, perhaps, does not yet have a blueprint, or answers. That is daunting. Terrifying, even. Yet, that is precisely what creativity has evolved to deal with. 

The consumption-creation matrix is a concept that encourages individuals to quantify the amount of time they spend consuming content, and develop a ratio contrasting it with time spent creating. Understanding and exercising autonomy over time spent consuming can be elucidating, and freeing.

Creating does not have to be fun. It also does not have to seem like work. It may, at times, resemble both. But I think the key is that when you are in the process of creating, it should feel like you are alive. It should feel like growth. Those are not things that I, at least, have figured out how to purchase.