What is Creativity_ Cultural Icons on What Ideation is and How It Works _ Brain Pickings

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  • 12/5/2014 What Is Creativity? Cultural Icons on What Ideation Is and How It Works | Brain Pickings

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    What Is Creativity? Cultural Iconson What Ideation Is and How ItWorksby Maria Popova

    Bradbury, Eames, Angelou, Gladwell, Einstein, Byrne,

    Duchamp, Close, Sendak, and more.

    Creativity is one of those grab-bag terms, like happiness

    and love, that can mean so many things it runs the risk of

    meaning nothing at all. And yet some of historys greatest

    minds have attempted to capture, explain, describe, itemize,

    and dissect the nature of creativity. After similar omnibi of

    cultural icons most beautiful and articulate definitions of art,

    of science, and of love, here comes one of creativity.

    For Ray Bradbury, creativity was the art of muting the rational mind:

    The intellect is a great danger to creativity because you

    begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things, instead

    of staying with your own basic truth who you are, what

    you are, what you want to be. Ive had a sign over my

    typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads Dont think!

    You must never think at the typewriter you must feel.

    Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. The

    worst thing you do when you think is lie you can make

    up reasons that are not true for the things that you did, and

    what youre trying to do as a creative person is surprise

    yourself find out who you really are, and try not to lie, try

    to tell the truth all the time. And the only way to do this is by

    being very active and very emotional, and get it out of

    yourself making things that you hate and things that you

    love, you write about these then, intensely.

    Long before he became the artist we know and love, a young Maurice Sendak

    full of self-doubt wrote in a letter to his editor, the remarkable Ursula

    Nordstrom:

    Knowledge is the driving force that puts creative passion to

    work.

    In writing back, Nordstrom responded with her signature blend of wisdom and

    assurance:

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brain-Pickings/55555550744?ref=mfhttp://www.twitter.com/brainpickerhttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/newsletter/http://feedproxy.google.com/brainpickings/rsshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/about/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/donate/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/contact/http://bookpickings.brainpickings.org/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/newsletter/http://literaryjukebox.brainpickings.org/http://art.brainpickings.org/https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=2c3f591812&e=b2dbad0745http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/donate/http://www.brainpickings.org/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/06/what-is-creativity/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/author/mpopova/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/06/22/what-is-art/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/06/what-is-science/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/01/what-is-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/22/ray-bradbury-day-at-night-1974-interview/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/maurice-sendak/http://thereconstructionists.org/post/41698828032/in-1972-when-a-school-librarian-burned-a-copy-ofhttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/10/ursula-nordstrom-letter-maurice-sendak/
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    labors of love

    That is the creative artist a penalty of the creative artist

    wanting to make order out of chaos.

    Portrait by Lisa Congdon for our Reconstructionists project. Click image fordetails.

    Bill Moyers is credited with having offered a sort of mirror-image definition

    that does away with order and seeks, instead, magical chaos:

    Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

    For Albert Einstein, its defining characteristic was what he called

    combinatory play. In a letter to a French mathematician, included in Einsteins

    ,GHDVDQG2SLQLRQV (public library), he writes:

    The words or the language, as they are written or spoken,

    do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought.

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/12/16/writers-wakeup-times-literary-productivity-visualization/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/03/advice-to-little-girls-mark-twain/http://thereconstructionists.org/post/41698828032/in-1972-when-a-school-librarian-burned-a-copy-ofhttp://explore.noodle.org/post/53323730990/bill-moyers-pair-with-this-vintage-guide-tohttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/14/how-einstein-thought-combinatorial-creativity/https://www.amazon.com/dp/0517884402/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=braipick-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0517884402&adid=1R8GADRH5PPNF3BCAPFW&http://www.worldcat.org/title/ideas-and-opinions/oclc/29754662&referer=brief_results
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    The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in

    thought are certain signs and more or less clear images

    which can be voluntarily reproduced and combined.

    There is, of course, a certain connection between those

    elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that

    the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is

    the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above-

    mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological

    viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential

    feature in productive thought before there is any

    connection with logical construction in words or other kinds

    of signs which can be communicated to others.

    Portrait by Lisa Congdon for our Reconstructionists project. Click image fordetails.

    For Maya Angelou, a modern-day sage of the finest kind, the mystery and

    miracle of creativity is in its self-regenerating nature. In the excellent collection

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/03/advice-to-little-girls-mark-twain/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/03/anais-nin-love-debbie-millman-1/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/21/anais-nin-on-love-by-debbie-millman-2/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/03/susan-sontag-on-love/http://thereconstructionists.org/post/45683682371/theres-something-which-impels-us-to-show-ourhttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/maya-angelou/http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Maya-Angelou-Literary/dp/087805362X/?tag=braipick-20http://www.worldcat.org/title/conversations-with-maya-angelou/oclc/18876661&referer=brief_results
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    must-reads

    &RQYHUVDWLRQVZLWK0 D\D$QJHORX (public library), which also gave us her

    poignant exchange with Bill Moyers, Angelou says:

    Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I dont

    understand but something Im able to harness and use.

    While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it

    and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating

    room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to

    electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no

    judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The

    important thing is to use it. You cant use up creativity. The

    more you use it, the more you have.

    Tom Bissell, writing in 0 DJLF+RXUV(VVD\VRQ&UHDWRUVDQG&UHDWLRQ, also

    celebrates this magical quality of creativity:

    To create anything is to believe, if only momentarily, you

    are capable of magic. That magic is sometimes

    perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes

    failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and

    sometimes tragic.

    But there might be something more precise and less mystical about the creative

    process. In 8QFRPPRQ* HQLXV+RZ* UHDW,GHDV$UH%RUQ (public library), the

    fantastic collection of interviews with MacArthur genius grantees by Denise

    Shekerjian, she recapitulates her findings:

    The trick to creativity, if there is a single useful thing to say

    about it, is to identify your own peculiar talent and then to

    settle down to work with it for a good long time.

    Shekerjian interviews the late Stephen Jay Gould, arguably the best science

    writer of all time, who describes his own approach to creativity as the art of

    making connections, which Shekerjian synthesizes:

    Goulds special talent, that rare gift for seeing the

    connections between seemingly unrelated things, zinged to

    the heart of the matter. Without meaning to, he had zeroed

    in on the most popular of the manifold definitions of

    creativity: the idea of connecting two unrelated things in an

    efficient way. The surprise we experience at such a linkage

    brings us up short and causes us to think, Now thats

    creative.

    This notion, of course, is not new. In his timelessly insightful 1939 treatise $

    7HFKQLTXHIRU3URGXFLQJ,GHDV (public library), outlining the five stages of

    ideation, James Webb Young asserts:

    An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of

    old elements [and] the capacity to bring old elements into

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/03/susan-sontag-on-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/30/susan-sontag-on-art/http://mbsy.co/7pDhttp://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Maya-Angelou-Literary/dp/087805362X/?tag=braipick-20http://www.worldcat.org/title/conversations-with-maya-angelou/oclc/18876661&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/14/maya-angelou-bill-moyers-1973/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/13/magic-hours-tom-bissell/http://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Genius-Great-Ideas-Born/dp/0140109862/?tag=braipick-20http://www.worldcat.org/title/uncommon-genius-how-great-ideas-are-born/oclc/20167611&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/10/05/stephen-jay-gould-i-have-landed/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/23/uncommon-genius-stephen-jay-gould-connections-creativity/https://www.amazon.com/dp/1434102750/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=braipick-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1434102750&adid=070MQ7RWEYG174JFCGW2&http://www.worldcat.org/title/technique-for-producing-ideas/oclc/4303920&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/04/a-technique-for-producing-ideas-young/
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    HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE AND DO

    WHAT YOU LOVE

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    AFRAID, SPEEDS UP AS WE AGE, AND

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    20-YEAR-OLD HUNTER S. THOMPSONS

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    FAIL SAFE: DEBBIE MILLMAN ON COURAGE

    AND THE CREATIVE LIFE

    new combinations depends largely on the ability to see

    relationships. The habit of mind which leads to a search for

    relationships between facts becomes of the highest

    importance in the production of ideas.

    Three years later, in 1942, Rosamund Harding added another dimension of

    stressing the importance of cross-disciplinary combinations in wonderful out-

    of-print tome $Q$QDWRP\RI,QVSLUDWLRQ:

    Originality depends on new and striking combinations of

    ideas. It is obvious therefore that the more a man knows the

    greater scope he has for arriving at striking combinations.

    And not only the more he knows about his own subject but

    the more he knows beyond it of other subjects. It is a fact

    that has not yet been sufficiently stressed that those persons

    who have risen to eminence in arts, letters or sciences have

    frequently possessed considerable knowledge of subjects

    outside their own sphere of activity.

    Seven decades later, Phil Beadle echoes this concept in his wonderful blueprint

    field guide to creativity, DQFLQJ$ERXW$UFKLWHFWXUH$/ LWWOH%RRNRI&UHDWLYLW\

    (public library):

    It is the ability to spot the potential in the product of

    connecting things that dont ordinarily go together that

    marks out the person who is truly creative.

    Steve Jobs famously articulated this notion and took it a step further,

    emphasizing the importance of building a rich personal library of experiences

    and ideas to connect:

    Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative

    people how they did something, they feel a little guilty

    because they didnt really do it, they just saw something. It

    seemed obvious to them after a while. Thats because they

    were able to connect experiences theyve had and synthesize

    new things. And the reason they were able to do that was

    that theyve had more experiences or they have thought

    more about their experiences than other people.

    Unfortunately, thats too rare a commodity. A lot of people in

    our industry havent had very diverse experiences. So they

    dont have enough dots to connect, and they end up with

    very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the

    problem. The broader ones understanding of the human

    experience, the better design we will have.

    Musician Amanda Palmer puts this even more poetically in her meditation on

    dot-connecting and creativity:

    We can only connect the dots that we collect, which makes

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/27/purpose-work-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/27/purpose-work-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/12/23/best-books-of-2013/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/12/23/best-books-of-2013/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/15/time-warped-claudia-hammond/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/15/time-warped-claudia-hammond/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/debbie-millman-look-both-ways-fail-safe/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/debbie-millman-look-both-ways-fail-safe/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/09/an-anatomy-of-inspiration-rosamond-harding/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/27/dancing-about-architecture-phil-beadle/https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845907256/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=braipick-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1845907256&adid=0T2AESB2KZVXYCM1QVCT&http://www.worldcat.org/title/dancing-about-architecture-a-little-book-of-creativity/oclc/738371365&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/10/20/i-steve-steve-jobs-in-his-own-words/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/28/amanda-palmer-on-creativity-online/
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    everything you write about you. Your connections are

    the thread that you weave into the cloth that becomes the

    story that only you can tell.

    Beloved graphic designer Paula Scher has a different metaphor for the same

    concept. In Debbie Millmans +RZWR7KLQN/ LNHD* UHDW* UDSKLF HVLJQHU (UK;

    public library), Scher likens creativity to a slot machine:

    Theres a certain amount of intuitive thinking that goes into

    everything. Its so hard to describe how things happen

    intuitively. I can describe it as a computer and a slot

    machine. I have a pile of stuff in my brain, a pile of stuff from

    all the books Ive read and all the movies Ive seen. Every

    piece of artwork Ive ever looked at. Every conversation

    thats inspired me, every piece of street art Ive seen along the

    way. Anything Ive purchased, rejected, loved, hated. Its all in

    there. Its all on one side of the brain.

    And on the other side of the brain is a specific brief that

    comes from my understanding of the project and says, okay,

    this solution is made up of A, B, C, and D. And if you pull the

    handle on the slot machine, they sort of run around in a

    circle, and what you hope is that those three cherries line up,

    and the cash comes out.

    But Arthur Koestler, in his seminal 1964 anatomy of creativity, 7KH$FW2I

    &UHDWLRQ (public library), argues that besides connection, the creative act

    necessitates contrast, or what he termed bisociation:

    The pattern underlying [the creative act] is the perceiving of a

    situation or idea in two self-consistent but habitually

    incompatible frames of references. The event, in which the

    two intersect, is made to vibrate simultaneously on two

    different wavelengths, as it were. While this unusual situation

    lasts, [the event] is not merely linked to one associative

    context, but bisociated with two.

    I have coined the term bisociation in order to make a

    distinction between the routine skills of thinking on a single

    plane, as it were, and the creative act, which always

    operates on more than one plane. The former can be called

    single-minded, the latter double-minded, transitory state of

    unstable equilibrium where the balance of both emotion and

    thought is disturbed.

    He differentiated between cognitive habit, or merely associative thought, and

    originality, or bisociative ideation, thusly:

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/13/how-to-worry-less-about-money/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/13/how-to-worry-less-about-money/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/09/lost-cat-wendy-macnaughton-caroline-paul/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/09/lost-cat-wendy-macnaughton-caroline-paul/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/03/advice-on-writing/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/03/advice-on-writing/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/01/what-is-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/01/what-is-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/05/how-to-stay-sane-philippa-perry/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/05/how-to-stay-sane-philippa-perry/http://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Great-Graphic-Designer/dp/1581154968/?tag=braipick-20http://www.amazon.co.uk/Think-Like-Great-Graphic-Designer/dp/1581154968/?tag=braipick0d-21http://www.worldcat.org/title/how-to-think-like-a-great-graphic-designer/oclc/711828893&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/31/paula-scher-debbie-millman-interview/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CM5EB/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=braipick-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0000CM5EB&adid=0CPQQXQV8HE4J4WBSFE0&http://www.worldcat.org/title/act-of-creation/oclc/223628&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/20/arthur-koestler-creativity-bisociation/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/20/arthur-koestler-creativity-bisociation/
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    Twenty years later, creative icon and original Mad Man George Lois echoed

    Koestler in his influential tome 7KH$UWRI$GYHUWLVLQJ* HRUJH/ RLVRQ0 DVV

    &RPPXQLFDWLRQ (public library):

    Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act,

    the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

    For Gretchen Rubin, however, habit isnt the enemy of creativity but its engine.

    In 0 DQDJH

  • 12/5/2014 What Is Creativity? Cultural Icons on What Ideation Is and How It Works | Brain Pickings

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    9 BOOKS TO HELP YOU READ MORE AND

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    the British postal system, observed, A small daily task, if it

    be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

    Over the long run, the unglamorous habit of frequency

    fosters both productivity and creativity.

    []

    Youre much more likely to spot surprising relationships and

    to see fresh connections among ideas, if your mind is

    constantly humming with issues related to your work. By

    contrast, working sporadically makes it hard to keep your

    focus. Its easy to become blocked, confused, or distracted,

    or to forget what you were aiming to accomplish.

    []

    Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of

    the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep

    your mind engaged with your project. When you work

    regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.

    In 1926, English social psychologist and London School of Economics co-

    founder Graham Wallas penned The Art of Thought, laying out his theory for

    how creativity works. Its gist, preserved in the altogether indispensable 7KH

    &UHDWLYLW\4XHVWLRQ (public library), identifies the four stages of the creative

    process preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification and their

    essential interplay:

    In the daily stream of thought these four different stages

    constantly overlap each other as we explore different

    problems. An economist reading a Blue Book, a physiologist

    watching an experiment, or a business man going through

    his mornings letters, may at the same time be incubating

    on a problem which he proposed to himself a few days ago,

    be accumulating knowledge in preparation for a second

    problem, and be verifying his conclusions on a third

    problem. Even in exploring the same problem, the mind may

    be unconsciously incubating on one aspect of it, while it is

    consciously employed in preparing for or verifying another

    aspect. And it must always be remembered that much very

    important thinking, done for instance by a poet exploring his

    own memories, or by a man trying to see clearly his

    emotional relation to his country or his party, resembles

    musical composition in that the stages leading to success

    are not very easily fitted into a problem and solution

    scheme. Yet, even when success in thought means the

    creation of something felt to be beautiful and true rather than

    the solution of a prescribed problem, the four stages of

    Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and the Verification of

    the final result can generally be distinguished from each

    other.

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/09/best-books-on-writing-reading/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/09/best-books-on-writing-reading/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/30/how-to-be-a-nonconformist-elissa-jane-karg/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/30/how-to-be-a-nonconformist-elissa-jane-karg/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/25/must-read-books-happiness/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/01/25/must-read-books-happiness/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/12/carl-sagan-on-science-and-spirituality/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/12/carl-sagan-on-science-and-spirituality/http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Question-Albert-Rothenberg/dp/082230354X/?tag=braipick-20http://www.worldcat.org/title/creativity-question/oclc/2717860&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/28/the-art-of-thought-graham-wallas-stages/http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all
  • 12/5/2014 What Is Creativity? Cultural Icons on What Ideation Is and How It Works | Brain Pickings

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/06/what-is-creativity/ 9/13

    JOHN STEINBECK ON FALLING IN LOVE: A

    1958 LETTER

    7 OBSCURE CHILDRENS BOOKS BY

    FAMOUS AUTHORS OF ADULT LITERATURE

    WHY WE LOVE: 5 BOOKS ON THE

    PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE

    7 MUST-READ BOOKS ON MUSIC,

    EMOTION & THE BRAIN

    BERTRAND RUSSELL'S 10 COMMANDMENTS

    OF TEACHING

    But Malcolm Gladwell, in reflecting on the legacy of legendary economist

    Albert O. Hirscham in his review of Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O.

    Hirschman, doesnt think the creative process is so deliberate:

    Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we

    can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has

    happened. In other words, we would not consciously engage

    upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be

    forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our

    creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature

    of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine,

    simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn

    out to be.

    But David Byrne is skeptical of this romantic notion that creativity is a purely

    subconscious muse that dances to its own mystical drum. In +RZ0 XVLF: RUNV

    (public library), one of the best music books of 2012, he writes:

    I had an extremely slow-dawning insight about creation. That

    insight is that context largely determines what is written,

    painted, sculpted, sung, or performed. That doesnt sound

    like much of an insight, but its actually the opposite of

    conventional wisdom, which maintains that creation emerges

    out of some interior emotion, from an upwelling of passion

    or feeling, and that the creative urge will brook no

    accommodation, that it simply must find an outlet to be

    heard, read, or seen. The accepted narrative suggests that a

    classical composer gets a strange look in his or her eye and

    begins furiously scribbling a fully realized composition that

    couldnt exist in any other form. Or that the rock-and-roll

    singer is driven by desires and demons, and out bursts this

    amazing, perfectly shaped song that had to be three minutes

    and twelve seconds nothing more, nothing less. This is

    the romantic notion of how creative work comes to be, but I

    think the path of creation is almost 180 from this model. I

    believe that we unconsciously and instinctively make work to

    fit preexisting formats.

    Of course, passion can still be present. Just because the

    form that ones work will take is predetermined and

    opportunistic (meaning one makes something because the

    opportunity is there), it doesnt mean that creation must be

    cold, mechanical, and heartless. Dark and emotional

    materials usually find a way in, and the tailoring process

    form being tailored to fit a given context is largely

    unconscious, instinctive. We usually dont even notice it.

    Opportunity and availability are often the mother of invention.

    For John Cleese, creativity is neither a conscious plan of attack nor an

    unconscious mystery, but a mode of being. In his superb 1991 talk on the five

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/12/john-steinbeck-on-love-1958/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/01/12/john-steinbeck-on-love-1958/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/07/25/childrens-books-by-adult-authors-2/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/07/25/childrens-books-by-adult-authors-2/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/04/18/5-must-read-books-on-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/04/18/5-must-read-books-on-love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/03/21/must-read-books-music-emotion-brain/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/03/21/must-read-books-music-emotion-brain/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/02/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/02/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell/http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=allhttp://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosopher-Odyssey-Albert-Hirschman/dp/0691155674/?tag=braipick-20https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936365537/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=braipick-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1936365537&adid=0KMC0NR3864E85MPN9Z3&http://www.worldcat.org/title/how-music-works/oclc/746834427&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/21/best-music-books-2012/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/
  • 12/5/2014 What Is Creativity? Cultural Icons on What Ideation Is and How It Works | Brain Pickings

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/06/what-is-creativity/ 10/13

    5 TIMELESS COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES

    TO TEACH YOU TO DEFINE YOUR OWN

    SUCCESS

    explore

    activism advertising

    animation artbooks children'sbooks collaboration

    creativity

    culture datavisualization designdiaries documentary

    education film foodhappiness historyillustrationinnovation interview

    knowledge letters

    literature love

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    psychology remixscience social webSoundCloud

    sustainability

    technology TEDvideo vintage vintagechildren's books world

    writing

    factors of creativity, he asserts in his characteristic manner of laconic wisdom:

    Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

    In ,QVLGHWKH3DLQWHUV6WXGLR (public library), celebrated artist Chuck Close is

    even more exacting in his take on this way of operating, equating creativity

    with work ethic:

    Inspiration is for amateurs the rest of us just show up

    and get to work.

    In his short 1957 paper The Creative Act, French surrealist icon Marcel

    Duchamp considers the work of creativity a participatory project involving

    both creator and spectator:

    The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the

    spectator brings the work in contact with the external world

    by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and

    thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes

    even more obvious when posterity gives a final verdict and

    sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.

    Meanwhile, artist Austin Kleon, author of the wonderful Steal Like an Artist,

    celebrates the negative space of the creative act in his 1HZVSDSHU%ODFNRXW

    masterpiece:

    http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/18/commencement-speeches-2//http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/18/commencement-speeches-2/http://www.curatorscode.org/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/activism/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/advertising/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/animation/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/art/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/books/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/childrens-books/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/collaboration/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/creativity/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/culture/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/data-visualization/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/design/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/diaries/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/documentary/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/education/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/film/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/food/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/happiness/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/history/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/illustration/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/innovation/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/interview/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/knowledge/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/letters/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/literature/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/love/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/music/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/omnibus/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/out-of-print/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/philosophy/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/photography/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/poetry/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/politics/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/psychology/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/remix/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/science/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/social-web/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/soundcloud/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/sustainability/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/technology/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/ted/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/video/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/vintage/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/vintage-childrens-books/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/world/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/tag/writing/http://twittercounter.com/?username=brainpickerhttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Painters-Studio-Joe-Fig/dp/1568988524/?tag=braipick-20http://www.worldcat.org/title/inside-the-painters-studio/oclc/281098957&referer=brief_resultshttp://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/27/chuck-close-on-creativity/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/23/the-creative-act-marcel-duchamp-1957/http://austinkleon.com/http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/08/steal-like-an-artist-austin-kleon-book/http://www.amazon.com/Newspaper-Blackout-Austin-Kleon/dp/0061732974/?tag=braipick-20http://www.amazon.com/Newspaper-Blackout-Austin-Kleon/dp/0061732974/?tag=braipick-20
  • 12/5/2014 What Is Creativity? Cultural Icons on What Ideation Is and How It Works | Brain Pickings

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    But perhaps, after all, we should heed Charles Eamess admonition:

    Recent years have shown a growing preoccupation with the

    circumstances surrounding the creative act and a search for

    the ingredients that promote creativity. This preoccupation in

    itself suggests that we are in a special kind of trouble and

    indeed we are.

    Complement with Kierkegaard on creativity and anxiety and French polymath

    Henri Poincar on how creativity works, then revisit these five fantastic reads on

    fear and the creative process.

    RQDWLQJ / RYLQJ

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