PREFACE TO THE MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED “DARE TO CREATE" by Olurotimi Odejayi

PREFACE TO THE MANUSCRIPT ENTITLED “DARE TO CREATE”

At the initial stage, I hated myself for being an apprentice under Mr. Hezekiah Ojo in the late 1990s. I was a teenager and rarely went to the shop for my routine job training. I thought learning a vocation was wrong. It was after two years that I fully understood the whole idea and turned over a new leaf. I was attending to my training and submitted myself to learning the crafts and technical exposure to electrical rewinding. The best life teacher, I think, is an experience. Join me as I share with you some of my non-formal education experiences. In this book are down-to-earth writings that will open your eyes to the unpopular subject of creativity. This is the crux of the matter, as well as the matter of the heart for the teeming youths. The reason is because you cannot professionally sing, speak, write, program, sport, draw, act, carve, dance, direct, play, etc., professionally without being creative. You can go to school and still be jobless but you can never delve into creativity and be jobless in life! The least you can become is a personality that can employ yourself just as Olurotimi Odejayi did for himself. Before anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, such an individual must be creative. It is better to swallow bitter medicinal pills and be healed once and for all than to be accustomed to taking sweet stuff that will kill the body. The best way to predict the future is to create it.

The book you are about to read contains rare gems that will further open your eyes of understanding as regards when, where, how, what, and why youths need to be creative. I personally took the subject of creativity like an orphan who really needs people’s help. In our quest for entrepreneurship, a serious case was made for creativity and convincing reasons why you have to be creative given. As the cases of unemployment rise every now and then in Africa and beyond, here is a book that will inspire you to create as well as dare to be creative. Elsewhere, I personally took the time to conduct exclusive interviews with some relevant professionals, who in turn gave me different useful insights into the subject-matter. Within this book are blow-by-blow steps you have to take to be creative.

The assurance you can get is that this is not just any book; it is a masterpiece that I am sure will inspire you to be creative. And the reason for this is because an enterprising youth is one who is innovative enough to create something. The consequence of this is that you will solve societal problems as well as become renowned as an entrepreneur wherein you will equally be remunerated in turn. In a digital age as ours, be informed that it is your creativity that makes the difference. Be proactive as you read this creative book and recall that the doings of men are usually the clear indicator of their mindset. The gospel truth is that this book clearly demystifies the difference between craft and creativity. Elusive to the average youths today is cash and that is because they have not mastered the craft of a vocation and so they cannot be creative. This is the sequence: a person who ponders comes up with one idea or the other, which must have been born out of a skilful thought process. Before the individual can inject some creativity into the idea, he/ she must daily work on it. For example, the lives of the Nigerian musician Asa, and of the football icon Messi, show that the easiest way to write your name in gold, in the commonwealth of the great, is to be creative. You live a fulfilled life when you are creative. Creativity, from an artist’s point of view, is a unique display of your potential and craft in a professional and universally acceptable way.

The word creativity is a combination of these two words: create and activity. For anyone or any human endeavour to be adjudged creative, it has to be a proportionate blend of both create cum activity, that is, ‘cre-activity’. Check it very well, at the end of any worthwhile creation is an out-of-the-box thinking coupled with the corresponding activities. Where others put a full stop, you put a comma and carry out the activity that will keep others stand surprised at your invention. And that is where courage comes in. To do anything worthwhile entails a conscious effort at daring, and daring so well enough to be creative. I implore you, be bold to create. Like I wrote in the book, DARE TO PONDER, it is your activities that make the difference. Take up the impudence to act and create the needful.

Creativity unleashes not from always being a conformist, but from daring to be different and in asking questions. It is as simple as being different in your intellectual look at things and acting differently. No good thing is achieved on a platter of gold. It takes a purposeful heart that is courageous enough to be creative. Simply put, have the courage to follow your heart and intuitions on that your creative quest.

Every man dies. Not every human being really lives. The summary of this book is for youths to dare to be creative or die in consonance with: “To live is actually the rarest thing in the world. Most people only exist, that is all” – Oscar Wilde.