Heroes Not Zombies

I’ve just read a couple of books about creativity and it’s interesting to compare what they say. The first one I read was “The Creative Brain” by Nancy CAndreasen. (ISBN 0-452-28781-2). Nancy Andreasen sounds a really interesting person. Not only is she an MD who has specialised in brain research, but she is a PhD in Renaissance literature. Sometimes I think all doctors would be better doctors if they also studied a Humanities subject. Her final chapter is “Building Better Brains” and here she gives creativity exercises for adults and for children. Here are the paragraph heads –

• Choose a New and Unfamiliar Area of Knowledge and Explore It in Depth
• Spend Some Time Each Day Practicing Meditation or “Just Thinking”
• Practice Observing and Describing
• Practice Imagining

and for children –

• Switch Off the TV
• Read Together, Interactively
• Emphasize Diversity
• Ask Interesting Questions
• Go Outdoors and Look at the Natural World
• Get Them Interested in Music

The second book I read was “Window Seat. The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking” by Julieanne Kost. (ISBN 0-596-10083-3). This author is a photographer and “evangelist and trainer for Adobe Photoshop software”. She took 3000 photos from the window seats of commercial aircraft as she travelled on business over a five year period. The 150 photos in this book are stunning and inspirational but what makes this an incredibly different photography book is that it is in three sections. The first section is “The Art of Creative Thinking”, the second section is the photographs, and the third is an appendix of the techniques she used to make the photos. Here are the paragraph heads of her first section on creativity –

• Master your tools
• Listen to what your life is trying to tell you
• Be open to whatever comes your way
• Share what you know and learn from others
• Collaborate with other creative people, especially the quiet ones
• Be flexible. Learn to negotiate
• Fix whatever you complain about the most
• View every challenge as a possible discovery
• Take 15 minutes for yourself every day
• Figure out what you need to do to reach your “zero point”
• Integrate work and art; both will benefit
• Take up an interest in something you know nothing about
• Look at new stuff – and at what you already know – with a fresh perspective
• Keep a journal
• Visualise first, Photoshop second
• Replace your thoughts with intuition
• Play! Play! Play!
• Know when you’re done

Even although I’m not writing about the detail of any of these paragraphs here you can see a large potential consensus. Both of these authors write clearly, simply and are very down to earth. There’s nothing “airy-fairy” about them.
Having read not only these two books but many others on the subject of creativity here are the practical steps I think lead to becoming more creative in your life –

1. Take some time each day to think and reflect – you might call this meditation, you might go over something in your head, or write down your thoughts – but however you do it, actually take some time each day to think.
2. Notice more. Actively try to observe more consciously.
3. Explore. Be curious. Find out more about something every day
4. Be passionate. If you have a passion for something, pursue it!
5. Share. Spend some time talking or playing with other people – adults or children – every day.
6. Accept challenges as opportunities to grow
7. Focus on difference. Seek diversity and variety
8. Create your own rhythms. Certain habits or disciplines are not constraining but instead they release – this is one of the bases of poetry which is not just words which rhyme but is words chosen within certain disciplines of pattern.
9. Capture something every day – either write in a journal, take a photo, record a video or audio clip. What you capture will be your treasure chest!
10. Schedule. I don’t just mean schedule what needs to be done, I mean schedule in some periods of time just to pursue creativity