6 offbeat activities to spruce up your creativity

Living in a city, we’re usually wound up in routines that revolve around work and getting home.

The life of the average individual becomes quite the assortment of activities. But does that mean that there is a fair share of time set aside to nurture our creative sides?

Apart from work routine, staying home and spending time with family, and getting together with friends, there is not much of a window to exercise and explore one’s creative side. Not to mention drawbacks in using smartphones and other mobile devices that just eats away our time without us noticing. With an increasing need for those who can think outside the box in several professional fields, it is important to keep our left-of-centres occupied. Here’s a list of participative activities to rejuvenate your creative side.

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Spoken Word poetry

Spoken Word poetry or Slam poetry, among many stage performances, is where poetry meets performance. It is basically enacting a poem you wrote, except it needn’t adhere to the routine poem structures that you find on paper. Rooting from rap and theatre, spoken word poetry is a potential outlet for many youngsters to express themselves. There are workshops held for the same which are usually for free.

Playback theatre

The original form of improvisational theatre, Playback theatre engages the audience with the theatre performance on a bigger level. A member of the audience would narrate a real life experience, which in turn would be enacted by someone else on the spot. The mere reflection of your own experiences in an enactment should offer fresh perspective. The spontaneity and interactive nature of this form can get the creative juices flowing.

Bookshop crawls

Yes, you read that right. Bookshop crawls are the same as your pub crawls without the alcohol. One of Bengaluru’s book shop crawls was held at The Humming Tree, a café/bar, where a group of people went from bookstore to bookstore buying, swapping and talking about books. Well, what better way to garner inspiration than being surrounded by bibliophiles and books?

Music jams

Are you a musician who’s been out of touch with your instrument? Do you sing? Or are you a tone deaf person who loves to sing along? Well, you need to be at a music jam. Music jams involve people coming together and making music impromptu. It could be a random progression of music chords or a familiar song that'd be performed. If you’re a musician who wants to reconnect with your music, take your instrument with you and be inspired.

Photo walks

This activity is not so much organised by anyone in particular than an individual activity. It is more of an introspective exercise than anything. It requires no extra effort or interaction with other people. Pick up your phone if you don’t have a camera, choose a place as simple as a park or the street you live in, and take some pictures. The perspective and direction you find can be quite revealing. With the pictures, you can make a photo blog, expand your Instagram posts or print them out and post them to a friend. Here are some basic rules for taking good pictures.

If this list of things you could do isn’t a remedy, it should at least set you off in the right direction.