Wednesday
Oct132010
Laughing about creativity
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 9:15AM
If you have no ideas, you will have no vision and no future. Ideas are necessary and will come to you, when and if you are prepared, there are several things you can do to be more creative, these are my favorites:
Photo by Frederic Della Faille Flickr CC
The world does not come to us, we make the world. This sounds strange as first but make sense when you realize that all of our senses are but sensors sending electric signals to the brain. Your eyes send electric pulses through the nerves to your brain, as does your fingertips, ears and nose. The brain receives all these signals and have to process them in some way, and does it by creating your perception of the world - creating the world you "see" around you.
We all know that we have a blind spot in our vision, but nobody has seen it - why, since the brain paints in the lacking information! Actually, to save bandwidth, the eyes only send information about what changes, and the brain paints in the rest. This is a little bit scary, a lot of things can go on around you without you registering it.
Basically your brain creates a world capturing everything you need to survive, and does a good job of creating a "logic box". The box is a set of rules that makes sense to you.
Your logic box might be buggy, luckily evolution has brought us rewards for fixing them. There is one theory that we laugh when we find errors in our model of the world - this is what a joke is all about: To tell a story is to create a scenario with an unexpected ending, and everyone laughs. We laugh at the unexpected, we enjoy the new discovery, we are rewarded for being curious and exploring the world.
A "crazy" idea is an idea that does not make sense, an idea that others laugh at. Good for you, this is exactly what you want, it is creative because it is outside the "logic boxes" of the people around you. The proof? They laugh at it.
Now that we know how to recognize creativity, we need some tools for having fun.
At Businessinsider they have a long list, personally I particularly like:
My message here is: Go out into the world and try to be laughed at, and laugh while learning. Does this seem realistic to you? Have you witnessed any of these ideas in your life?
Photo by Frederic Della Faille Flickr CCThinking outside the box
The world does not come to us, we make the world. This sounds strange as first but make sense when you realize that all of our senses are but sensors sending electric signals to the brain. Your eyes send electric pulses through the nerves to your brain, as does your fingertips, ears and nose. The brain receives all these signals and have to process them in some way, and does it by creating your perception of the world - creating the world you "see" around you.
We all know that we have a blind spot in our vision, but nobody has seen it - why, since the brain paints in the lacking information! Actually, to save bandwidth, the eyes only send information about what changes, and the brain paints in the rest. This is a little bit scary, a lot of things can go on around you without you registering it.
Basically your brain creates a world capturing everything you need to survive, and does a good job of creating a "logic box". The box is a set of rules that makes sense to you.
Debugging through laughter
Your logic box might be buggy, luckily evolution has brought us rewards for fixing them. There is one theory that we laugh when we find errors in our model of the world - this is what a joke is all about: To tell a story is to create a scenario with an unexpected ending, and everyone laughs. We laugh at the unexpected, we enjoy the new discovery, we are rewarded for being curious and exploring the world.
Creativity is to go outside the box
A "crazy" idea is an idea that does not make sense, an idea that others laugh at. Good for you, this is exactly what you want, it is creative because it is outside the "logic boxes" of the people around you. The proof? They laugh at it.
Techniques
Now that we know how to recognize creativity, we need some tools for having fun.
At Businessinsider they have a long list, personally I particularly like:
- Carry a notebook - when the idea comes, it must be captured.
- Do something new - learning new things is widening your logic box, ideas that fit within yours and is outside other's - are sure winners.
- Take two ideas and combine them into one - this is the essence of innovation, finding an unexpected connection.
- Move about - take a walk with the dog, a sure recipe for creativity and happiness.
- Get somebody not familiar with the subject to ask you about it - to regain the beginner's mindset.
- Listen actively - to really listen like a coach, to feel what the others feel, will widen your understanding immensely.
- Take a shower - it is very common that ideas come when your brain is running at half speed, awake but with free bandwidth, taking a shower or driving are good examples.
- Make a list of everything you can think about regarding your issue - by writing everything down, the information has a new route to your conscious.
- Sleep on it - the problem solution process continues even if you are not aware of it. When you are stuck, do something else, take a nap and wait for the ideas to come.
- Google it - to stumble around the subject will almost certainly get you to the edges of your logic.
My message here is: Go out into the world and try to be laughed at, and laugh while learning. Does this seem realistic to you? Have you witnessed any of these ideas in your life?
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