A Crazy, Colourful, Creative Life

My first discussion for my creativity series took place with Annie Kwok, a beautiful, inspiring, creative music teacher who talks so articulately and thoughtfully that I basically just pretended I was listening to a podcast during our phone call. Here is a picture of Annie that I nicked off her wonderful blog because it sums up her personality so beautifully

Annie spoke about creativity in a number of different ways. She sees it as uncomfortable, exciting and also essential to her very being. Creativity plays a huge role in her work and in her personal life, but she sees these two creative realms as separate and quite distinct from one another. As a teacher, Annie uses her creativity to aid learning, to keep the students engaged and to make the experience fun. She also sometimes finds creative ways to deal with the stress of teaching.

I grew up with teachers who always put more and that made me love my learning so anything that was valuable that stuck to me was given to me in a really playful way or a really joyful way or a really funny way …and as a kid I never listened to reason like if someone said oh yeah this is a really god thing for you to learn, you know it was alright but if someone made it fun it just stuck so much more. So that stayed with me all the way through my learning, all the way through my teenage and university years and has manifested itself in my teaching and so I innately look for ways to be playful and creative in my teaching because I think that’s how learning sticks. That’s one of the ways that learning sticks. And I’m really lucky in that nearly everywhere I’ve worked people have been just really, like stupidly creative.

There are weeks where I feel like I’m sucked dry and it’s like I have nothing more and still there’s two more days left and somehow I’ve gotta get through it. People are asking more of you and the kids need you… that’s where I become the most creative. I guess it’s like the antithesis of boring. You have to be quite creative in how you answer, respond. You’ve still gotta be caring and loving and that’s where I’m burdened the most coz I think after you stretch that bit further you realise you can do it. You don’t want to do it all the time but that it is actually possible.

In her personal life, Annie uses creativity to explore how she can learn about herself, her reactions, thoughts and feelings and to work through issues that come up along the way. Her personal creativity is often self-reflective and can sometimes be cathartic or uncomfortable or even both

I write, I journal, I sketch, I compose. Even when I’m on a walk I’m sort of thinking things through in an imaginative and creative way and so that’s essential to how I download and how I think of better ideas. Other people find that quite unusual and different and uncomfortable and challenging but I’m lucky in that it’s always been a big part of my life. When I don’t engage in those activities I feel like I haven’t had time to be myself. So for example when I journal it helps me line up my ideas and think of better ones and arrive at better solutions. Sometimes if I’ve got something challenging that I’m working on journaling helps me see it all on the page and then eventually a solution will come out of it.
On the weeks where I don’t journal for a week or so and then get back into it, it’s like riding a rusty bike. Like I’ve only not done it for a week and it just feels weird all of a sudden. Even I need to keep at it and it’s very liberating doing it. It’s really part of my day.
Sometimes when I’m journaling, and I’m just having a one person conversation stuff will come out because I’m letting myself write in this unconscious stream of thought, where I go “I didn’t think that was an issue” . And it will hold me up and then I’ll just find myself pokey and uncomfortable from it. And then I’ll try and make it better in my journal and verify it. Sometimes uncomfortable things come to the surface when you’re being creative. You need to give yourself time to make sense of it, face it.  Often for me it’s a struggle within my teaching maybe ideas or things that I’m doing in my classroom where I’ve gone “I thought that was alright but actually I’m not quite comfortable with the decision I made there; I need to check it out” and sometimes it’s how I interact with my colleagues. I think I’ve ‘won’ where maybe there was stuff where I was at fault where I need to re-examine it. So that’s what I mean by uncomfortable, it’s not always easy to be creative and really open in some ways

Nevertheless, creativity is more than merely an activity providing a route to catharsis or problem solving. For Annie, creativity is an innate part of her being

I think I would’ve ended up being creative no matter what I did. So if I had become a doctor (which was on the table at one point) I would’ve just become a crazy colourful creative doctor. I’d like to hope that I would’ve. I think that no matter where I ended up I would’ve done the same thing that I’m doing now. But I ended up in teaching because… well I failed the UMAT (Undergraduate Medical and Health Professions Admission Test).  And I actually got into law/science but ended up in teaching because I started doing the Festival of Music and I started tutoring and I really loved that and figured that actually I should probably go against the grain and do this thing that I really love. And my own teachers inspired me; they had a huge effect. They stepped into the role that my parents couldn’t. So I ended up in teaching because of the strength of that. If I’d become a lawyer or if I’d become an accountant or a doctor or whatever I think that I would’ve ended up being the same kind of person that I am now, just in a different role.

So what inspires a crazy, colourful, creative almost-doctor?

People doing things in a really kind, joyful, humble way really inspire me. I think excellence inspires me. But, I mean, there are a lot of excellent assholes in the world; I admire excellence, but I love it when I find someone who is the complete package. Someone who is excellent as well as humble. I go and read a lot about them or find out about them. The people that I look towards are definitely those types of people. And the people that I really hang tight to and I make an effort to connect with are those types of people. 

The day before we spoke, Annie had finished reading Brene Brown’s Braving The Wilderness. She found it challenging and inspiring, and shared her thoughts with me about it

It’s based around Maya Angelou’s quote of belonging nowhere but belonging everywhere and the crux of it is having the ability to be so yourself and standing so individually that it’s a true sense of belonging. So people think of belonging as having your own tribe or having your own posse to go to, which is really comfortable but Brene Brown challenges that and goes the real belonging is where you are so yourself that you can stand on your own, that wherever you go you do actually belong. That just shook me up and down. I went well this is stupid. What’s the point of having a family and having your culture and having your background if that’s not belonging, but I really got it in terms of my teaching because I don’t always belong. I look different, I sound different, my ideas go against the grain a lot, even when I don’t mean them to.  Reading this book was a great comfort because I realised I need to still keep being me. Even if I am in a place where I don’t belong in the traditional sense. I don’t fit easily into the conversation… I know they admire me and love my ideas even if they’re made uncomfortable by them.

To sum up, here is Annie’s final shout out to the creative life:

It’s definitely been a huge part of my life. I often don’t think I’m being creative in the definition of the word. I feel like I’m just sort of living and breathing and just doing life. I think it’s essential. I think it’s as essential as connecting with people because it’s like a pathway into yourself. I highly recommend it.