The creativity that was

I believe in the power of stories. Tales, told well, have an incredible power to convince, motivate and inspire. I love stories — even fantastic ones, like those told in How to Train Your Dragon, or Harry Potter. Creativity inspires me to be better. But I also hate conspiracy theories. I cannot stand stories that create a sense of victimisation within us, pin the blame on the great enemy lurking somewhere in the shadows, ready to control our lives, kill our babies, control our mind — and inject us all with microchips.

Recently I have wondered: could there be a balance between the two? Of narratives that are real, passionate and inspiring, and one that creates a sense of self-awareness and save our brain cells and maybe a few lives? To test my hypothesis, that there is an opportunity to tell stories, and do some good in the Covid-19 world, I got a friend to assemble a group of about three dozen young clinicians and public health workers working at the front lines of infectious diseases in Pakistan. My hope was to encourage them to write, tell their stories and engage with a broader community in the country. I prepared for the meeting, and was looking forward to working with some of the best brains in the country. At 8AM Pakistan last week I logged into the Zoom meeting.

The meeting did not go as planned.

It became clear to me that the clinicians and I were not on the same page. There was an almost negligible, appetite for engagement with the public through engaging writing. Most had never read any narrative non-fiction that brought in science and medicine for a broad audience. I have nothing but admiration for those at the frontlines who are busy saving lives and have little time to invest in writing. But among the attendees of this meeting, even those who had the time to write felt there was no value in writing whatsoever. For a few, public writing meant sharing a public post on Facebook. Some were worried that given the strength of those who espouse conspiracy theories, any writing in the public domain was asking for trouble. A few remarked that since they are not interested in reading, why should anyone else be interested in reading what they have to say? One doctor pointedly remarked that she refuses to read anything that takes longer than three minutes to read. All these statements troubled me deeply. Here was a group of learned men and women, who had such disdain for writing for the public.

To put it mildly, I was heartbroken.

When I probed further, I got a window into where things went wrong. I reached out to one of the attendees and she was candid. She told me that there was a point when she wanted to write. But as part of her medical school training, she was told to focus only on her exams and multiple-choice questions. Creativity was bad, she was told, and if she wanted to write she should not have become a doctor. I reached out to another participant who had gone to a different medical school in a different city but had the same story. Our system takes creative people and moulds them into robots. It sucks out the last breath of a creative spirit. The result is a stale conversation dominated by talking heads, who become overnight experts in everything under the sun.

As the debate on a national curriculum starts to pick up pace, we should recognise that creativity and professional training can coexist. Perhaps we should dream of a future where people will be encouraged to think, read and write as they please. A fantasy perhaps — but one worth imagining.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2020.

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