Creativity is the soul of life.  It can be activated in all sorts of ways.  It is a way of thinking, being and doing. A creative person need not fear the future because creativity increases with age.

Writer Steve Almond explains that there are two types of human intelligence.  One is called fluid intelligence and is the problem solving part of the brain.  The second is called crystallized intelligence which includes attained knowledge and experience.  The latter intelligence amazingly and predictably grows with age. Read Steve’s full article “The Age of Invention” in The Rotarian, Sept 2017, p42.

“What people don’t realize is that human beings possess different types of creativity,” says Shelley Carson, a Harvard researcher and author of the book Your Creative Brain.  “If you’re a theoretical physicist, you’re probably going to do your most creative work in your 20’s, because you rely on fluid intelligence.  But for a novelist or a composer or even a medical researcher, you can expect that your creative work may continue to improve as you age because your attention broadens.  Your’e seeing more of the big picture, making the connections between different aspects of your life, ones that younger people who are laser focused on one area may not see.”

“As the brain grows older . . . We stop being so self-conscious.  We no longer feel the same urgent need to impress others or please them, to abide the social expectations that might plague younger people. . . ”

Welcome the gray hair, go ahead and look forward to that next birthday, it only means expansion of the creative juices.