I recently had an interesting email conversation on creativity. So I figured I would list ten things that I believe about the creative process:
- Creativity works better in the absence of distractions.
- It takes work to get into a creative mood. There is a hump to get over.
- There is a link between mindfulness and creativity. Meditation can help being mindful, and hence clearing the mind is an essential cleansing in preparation for good work.
- Its hard to be creative when you are too sure of where you want to end up.
- Creativity is all about the process, not the goal.
- It needs deep think, and then down time for background processing. Being creative is not a matter of a single epiphany - it takes many sessions of sink time.
- Being motivated by money is a negative - it allows the goal to supercede the process.
- Sometimes you need to change environment to light the spark, or in other words, you cannot think outside the box if you are sitting in it!
- Creativity is a gift you cultivate and give yourself, but it has an impact on more than many.
- Creativity does not have to be paradigm shifting - even learning about yourself is highly creative.
Being creative is a process that comes from truly taking responsibility to learn from your own actions, and not being dependent on anyone else for it. Find yourself a creative person, and you will see someone who has failed many times, but has not given up trying to learn.
Sanjiv Das
2008-01-04
