As always, thanks for reading my stuff.

• Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi’s Creativity
• Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation
• Twyla Tharp’s  The Creative Habit.  

I recently discovered Jonah Lehrer (my favorite pop-science writer) is writing a book about this pet topic of mine.  I’m very excited about this–  Imagine: How Creativity Works  hits bookstores next Spring.  I mentioned the good news to a friend.

My friend said, “Oh, yeah.  I attended a talk of his (about Creativity) a few months ago in L.A.  He told the story of how a guy came up with this thing called The Swiffer . This guy came up with the idea by…”

“The Swiffer?” I asked.

“Yeah,” my friend said, “it’s this mop thing that…“

I said, “I know what The Swiffer is.  I just can’t believe Jonah Lehrer linked The Swiffer to Creativity.”

Coming up with The Swiffer may have something to do with innovation– making something better or more effective.  It may also provide a slightly interesting example of how some person’s brain worked to produce the insight/idea that made this little gizmo a bestseller among housewives.  But, The Swiffer is not a direct product of Creativity.  Nope.  No way.

I don’t know if Lehrer will include the Swiffer story in his book.  At least I hope he does not.  Creativity, innovation, discovery, insight and success are all hot concepts in popular literature right now.  But they are not interchangeable. Why?  Because discovery, innovation, insight and success are parts of a process not the whole process.  Creativity is the whole process. And as a whole process it generates Life– of systems and ideas.

Creativity is about battle (stay with me).  It is energy exchanged between Life and Destruction in which Life (of an idea, innovation, discovery, insight) takes the upper hand and wins.  Creativity is dynamic and fragile because it keeps up the fight to live on.   An idea or system in the throes of reproduction, adaptation and forging ahead through Time is Creative.

Sounds a bit Darwinian doesn’t it?  Convoluted?  Well, I’m working on it.

Thanks for reading.

I would love to hear from you in the comments section!

Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one.

And,

The definition of a creative person is:  someone whose thoughts or actions change a domain, or establish a new domain…a domain cannot be changed without explicit or implicit consent of a field responsible for it.

Now in the spirit of revision I question Csikszentmihalyi’s definition. Does it encapsulate all I’ve learned about Creativity during this past year?

How about you?  What is your definition of Creativity?  Check out the four definitions below and see if any fit your worldview.

Any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one with explicit or implicit consent of the field responsible for it. (Used by M. Csikszentmihalyi)

Makings things from scratch. (Used by Twyla Tharp– choreographer)

Building on and with the works of others. (If I have seen further, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants.– Isaac Newton). 

Self-expression with no editing. (Expressing with precision all the gold sparks the soul gives off. –Joan Miro, painter)

None of the above definitions ring true for you?  Then write a new definition in the comments section below.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you!

I was shocked by what I saw. But also relieved. I didn’t know the man on the steel cot.  I had never met him at a party or seen him on a motorbike. But more than that “he” did not look like a man at all.  “He” looked more like a display of a man at the Smithsonian, set next to a reconstructed velociraptor or a twisted piece of art at MOMA– fake skeleton wrapped in dehydrated tofu with a hint of yellow.  Still, this was the first time I had ever seen a dead person. 

I exhaled. My shoulders dropped an inch. Then I pushed through the crowd of student gawkers to stand very close to the former man. I brushed the edge of the table with the back of my hand.  It was smooth and very cold. I looked the former man up and down slowly. His devastating dehydration took my breath away. Suddenly I became aware of how juicy I was. I could lick my lips five times in a row for no clear reason because I had plenty of saliva ready and waiting. Heck, I had a whole river of blood running in bursts from heart to head and toes. And back to heart again. I could blink, think and sweat because I was full of fluids. The biggest difference between that cadaver and I?  I was sopping wet inside but he was dry like paper.

I left class that Friday lighter. I walked the mile back home with several friends and faster than usual.  I would not talk to anyone about my first cadaver encounter for years.  None of my classmates did either, at least not within my earshot.  But we all stood a little taller that day on, like we knew something ordinary people didn’t. I had seen death and for its lack of visible connection to life it did not scare me.  Two days later I returned dissection kit in hand to clean out, one square centimeter at a time, bits of a different cadaver. Over the next months the morgue amphitheater’s formaldehyde smell wove into my clothes, seeped into my skin and smoothed my hair.  It proved I was who I wanted to be the Fall before my nineteenth birthday–  a first year student of medicine.  

I rarely drive this much but yesterday I drove a total of five and a half  hours. Not all at once, but mostly spread out throughout the day.  I drove my children to summer camp, got them hot soup for lunch, got lost in a town I don’t know well– you get the picture. Cons of so much driving? My brain runs on reduced O2 levels (I can’t prove this), apathy creeps into my psyche like cheap perfume (this I know for sure) and I end the day physically exhausted even though I pretty much just sat.  Pros? My one-year-old logs in tons of beauty sleep and ends up smiley by dinner time. Also, I listen to a lot of audio-books and podcasts– which is totally awesome.

This morning, I listened to bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert talk about how she works.  Listening I felt a smidge envious because she has her routine down (and I don’t). I long for the certainty a proper routine brings a creative person.  Gilbert inspired me to work on my routine again.  I especially want to cut my driving by several hours!

Check out Gilbert’s talk at Big Think below:

Did Gilbert inspire you at all?

Let me know– and if she did, how?

• Inquiry-based learning,
• Hands on experimentation,
• After-school clubs galore,
• High-tech classrooms outfitted with the latest Apple stuff,
• Daily music lessons,
• Friday outings to a 300 acre ranch for agriculture,
• Animal husbandry and archaeological studies.
• Organic food lunches.

The list of super-cool offerings makes my mouth water.  Heck, I want to sign up myself.  But sometimes (my inner pessimist says often) reality is not so shiny.

Last Saturday, my daughter and I stood in an open hallway waiting for her turn to audition for the school’s show choir.  Other people waited for their turn also.  After ten minutes of quiet, some of the kids started talking to each other.  Here’s the deal:  those kids talked about TV shows (and nothing else) for as long as we all stood there (1 hour).

We don’t even have a television at home.  My girl needs at least a friend or two she can talk to about a million other things– make-up, books, cousins, snorkeling, homework, the future, boys, girls, teachers,YouTube, the past, food, music, sports, summer travel, winter travel, college plans etc.  It could be these kids just happened to talk about TV for an hour this one time.  But what is more likely is that they are wasting their summer in front of the tube.

Possibility #2:  My daughter could go to the local, high-quality prep-school instead.  The uniforms are prettier (red and blue, instead of grey earth tones), there are lots of different sports available for kids to participate in,  but more important students come from families that travel and read (at least the newspaper).  The down sides?  The teaching is heavily top-down. There is a ton of homework.  And it costs a lot.

Growing up, I attended a total of 7 different K-12 schools. Some encouraged inquiry, some shoved information down your throat.  Some had sweet teachers, some had scary ones with bad hair. Some had huge playgrounds (one surrounded by a forest), some had a lot of cement-scaping. But what I found most compelling in my education was my classmates.  The best education comes from having the brightest (and nicest) classmates.

Which school, the new charter school or the fancy prep, would be better for my daughter’s creative development?  Both have great potential.  The charter school encourages inquiry.  The prep-school drills in the proper skills and offers more interesting peers. It would be nice if these schools could merge into one amazing institution for my daughter’s sake.  But since that isn’t going to happen any time soon…here’s the question:

Where should I drop my daughter off come September?

• Leonardo Da Vinci- An Artist’s Advice
• Vitruvious- An Architect’s Advice
• David Bohn-  A Physicist’s Advice 
• Jonas Salk-  A Physician’s Advice
• Eleanor Roosevelt– A Humanitarian’s Advice
• James Watson- A Biologist’s Advice

I’m also reading (sometimes at the same time– does multi-reading count as multi-tasking?)  Creativity researcher Keith Sawyer’s Explaining Creativity which summarizes current findings about how Creativity works.  Sawyer has a new book out as well, Group Genius, but I thought I’d read his stuff in chronological order. In Explaining Creativity, Sawyer makes recommendations for anyone wanting to be (more) Creative.   Check out his list below:

1. Make sure that you are doing something you love.  Creativity takes years of hard work and dedication.
2. Get involved with a group of like-minded people, share ideas and collaborate.
3. Don’t worry about who gets credit.  When everyone genuinely collaborates, everyone ends up being more creative.
4. Build on past ideas, whether or not they are yours.  Stay on top of what everyone else is doing, and be open to inspiration from other people’s ideas.
5. Create a large network of colleagues, and stay in touch constantly.  Put yourself at the center of a creativity web.
6. Don’t expect the solution to come fully forged in a flash of insight.  Creativity takes time and involves many small sparks of insight, which you need to work hard at weaving together.
7. Put yourself in an environment that rewards failure.  Creativity is risky;  successful creative people are also the ones who fail most often. 
8. Creativity is inefficient.  Don’t expect every idea and every project to pan out.  Know when to cut your losses and move on. 

This to do list is a bit overwhelming especially when summer has just begun.

The cure?  Turn back to simplicity.

So this first day of summer, here’s MY one line advice to you–

Just get to work baby!

Take thought of the seed from which you spring.  You were not born to live as brutes. –Dante

Creativity is a lifestyle.  You choose to leave something material behind–  some proof you once existed and contributed on Earth.  Then you build your life around that. You still bathe, eat, make love and nurse a hobby but those are all the negative space around your creativity.  Creativity itself is the main thing.  The happiest creative people throughout history finished their lives knowing they did this.

One thing I’ve found is that the seeds of such a big decision are almost always planted in childhood. And children who experience the creative spark never forget it.

Creativity scholar E. Paul Torrence followed 400 children from kindergarten, observing how creativity blossomed in some subjects and withered unattended in others throughout their lifespans. He began this project as a young psychologist in the 1950′s.  As some of his subjects entered their 30′s, he recognized certain characteristics of children who grew to lead Creative and happy lives.  Torrence wrote a Manifesto for Children, based on his observations.

The Manifesto for Children

E. Paul Torrance

Don’t be afraid to fall in love with something
and pursue it with intensity.

Know, understand, take pride in, practice, develop, exploit
and enjoy your greatest strengths.

Learn to free yourself from the expectations of others
and to walk away from the games they impose on you.

 

Free yourself to play your own game.

Find a great teacher or mentor who will help you.

 

Learn the skills of interdependence.

Don’t waste energy trying to be well-rounded.

 

Do what you love and can do well.*

 

Torrence’s Manifesto encourages children to stay true to creativity and childhood’s treasured dreams, but his advice applies to any person who, as a child, worked –full-to-bursting with creative energy.  As Nobel Laureate Neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini says,

The moment you stop working you are dead…For me, it would be unhappiness beyond anything else. …I don’t work for the sake of mankind.  I work for my own sake.

*© E. P. Torrance (1983) Manifesto for Children, Athens, GA:
Georgia Studies of Creative Behavior and Full Circle Counseling, Inc.

I just finished Jonah Foer’s new book on memory, Moonwalking with Einstein. Foer points out you remember most easily moments of total engagement. This makes intuitive sense. But Foer also found the more engaged you are in your own life (because its super-interesting and extraordinary– like my Sunday brunch), the longer your life seems to you.  The idea that time flies when you’re having a good time may mean your “good time”  really is not that interesting.  Cognitive scientist Ed Cooke says,

The more we pack our lives with memories, the slower time seems to fly. Our subjective experience of time is highly variable.

I love this idea! Older parents catch me and my children at Trader Joe’s or the UPS Store to say, Enjoy this time when your kids are little, because it flies by.  This advice comes my way at least twice a month and its been coming for over a decade now so it’s gotten old. But it has also prompted me to check how I experience time with my small children. My time with small children does not feel fast in any way.  I could be exaggerating here but I did use the subjective word feels. Time with me feels mostly very, very slow.  After reading Foer’s book I can just assume those old-timer parents were bored silly when their kids where young. And I can pat myself on the back for being so super-engaged with my life.  Nice all around.

Enjoy!

Spark: More Stories About Getting to Work – Studio 360.