Core creativity versus spin-off creativity- is there a difference?
A new brick versus a hundred uses for a brick?
Deep creativity versus surface complication?
Merely stirring the pot and mixing things up does not seem as creative as making something simple and new. I think to make something utterly new you are better served by going back to first principles. Example: Keith Johnstone’s impro games came about after studying the THEORY of status as applied to animal interactions. He then applied it to a theatrical situation/interaction- to produce hundreds of ‘games’ that generated new dramatic material for actors and writers to work with. The Lumineers wrote their utterly compelling and simple songs after deciding to go right back to basics. By simplifying they created something new and of the moment.
Core creativity is when you simplify to make something new. Surface creativity is when you complicate to make something new.
Try this: instead of putting on a ‘creative’ head put on a ‘simplifying’ one when you next try to solve some problem or come up with a new story, song, book, game.