The Different Approaches to Creativity

Or, Looking Back at the Past 4 Years

First off, it is important to note that I am talking about my sibling A.A., not C.A.

This is crucial for me to point out because the former is 17 and the latter is 7. A 9.5-year difference divides the two and causes them to live completely different lives.

From 2007 to 2016, it was me, and A., alongside our parents, as we made do with the quintessential secular Jewish family life of Massachusetts. We did many of the same activities. Playing the piano, classes. I didn’t do soccer or Taekwondo though. Alongside acting, or singing, or baseball…

Ah, it appears I stand corrected. There were numerous differences between us. But it was never a competition. We were both on different trajectories even by a young age.

It changed even further when C. was born in 2016. A. now became the cursed middle child. But it was an interesting predicament, as he was well above the median age that would have made the 3 of us truly equal-age-differences from one another.

Of course we do have our similarities. One of the prime examples, and the main reason why I’m writing this post, is creativity.

We both are creative humans. While STEM and analytical subjects may pose some interest to us, we have both found more joy in participating in and interacting with the arts. Of course the ways how we went about executing that thought process differed, as much of what we think about differs.

Over the tenure of our high school careers, A. has been a member of the Drama Company, A Capella, and Repertory Dance Ensemble, becoming a key member in the latter two and vital to all of the communities.

As with me? Due to the COVID lockdown, I never had the chance — or really, desire to —integrate myself with the extracurriculars. There was never much encouragement or motivation for me to go about doing them. So I simply held out on my own, and poured all of my efforts into writing.

Writing. It’s a skill that people learn when they are younger. But oftentimes people don’t find any joy in it. Which, to be fair, can be seen as soul-sucking when all you’re writing about is analysis on characters who don’t deserve to have any empathy or compassion for whatsoever.

Due to my blog, I have been writing continuously (or at the very least: semi-frequently) in a non-academic setting for the past 4 years. I have had the time to develop my own style and sign it onto my own works. I was the writer in the family.

That was, until the dawn of last year.

My brother, for all of his characteristics, enjoys drama; and there is nothing wrong with that. Drama allows for emotions to be released in a unique form. By dialogue, action, and more from a fictional lens point. In fact, A. is so good at drama that when, at his camp, they did the competitive Play competition, he was seen as the only expert in an athletic boys’ camp, because he had some clue on how to go about executing a play.

But not just execution, mind you, but also conceptualizing the play.

You see, in 2023, the school’s drama company hosted a “24-Hour Play Festival” where students would be divided up in teams and have exactly 24 hours to write, rehearse, then finally perform a 20-35 minute play. Crazy? Absolutely. My brother was on a team as a writer. Which meant his job was to write a play with a few other people.

How did that work out? Well, when you fall asleep at 2AM, it’s not going to work out well. What I can say about the project is that the title was Cursed and that one of the characters yelled “I AM… CURSED!”

Yes, laugh with me. It was hilarious!

Regardless, A. was so petty and furious about the ordeal that he elected to completely rewrite the play on his own terms, and managed to compose a revised story within 4 hours.

It appears that I am no longer the only writer in the family.

Now, we are in last fall, and A. is taking a Creative Writing class. Where he manages to stick out as the star student with his own style. In addition to beginning to officially write out and take notes of a project that involves fire, death, etc. that would make Harry Potter look cheap. I took the same class this past semester and was really getting a run for my sanity.

But I was not concerned. For we had different, and I mean completely different writing styles in mind that made us still have our own unique semblances.

My writing style is more non-fiction like. Analytical is one term you could use. But I write about deep topics and present them on a semi-surface level. Philosophy, friendship, travel reviews. It’s fluff, but there is something there. Something that I’m proud of.

A., on the other hand, enjoys writing more fiction. In particular, dramas and realistic tragedies. But they are not bad. No, on the contrary. He incorporates numerous layers, references, and motifs into his works. It’s quite something to see the work that he creates.

Let me give a specific example of a recent work. At this moment, he is in the process of writing a 10-minute play about a circus ringmaster with DPD (I believe undiagnosed). Whatever the case is, because the circus is volatile or tensions come to a heat, the ringmaster has a teeny psychotic break and tries to perform an insane act, but instead it is brought to the audience’s attention that he is recounting this to Satan as he is held hostage in a coma.

Dark? I know right!

Also there is a reference to another, more known work in the screenshot. See if you can find it.

But there’s nothing wrong with this. He and I have both been through a lot. Grandparents’ deaths, COVID Pandemic, the abandonment by friends, and writing is a therapeutic way for us to release our emotions. I would like to become better at fiction writing, but that’s beside the point, and I’m sure he’ll be having a moment in AP English Literature.

If either one of us should be blogging, it should be him! His stories are much more interesting than my depressing rants. But alas, my efforts have not worked. Maybe one day though.

Anyways, the reason why I am writing this now is because A. is off at camp for 2 months as a C.I.T. Which means he gets to be a role model to a bunch of young souls, and to show that a person can have numerous overarching interests. Even if they are not necessarily the norm for teen boys.