The Manisfesto for Children, of All Ages

Posted on October 22, 2010 by galarzamonsalve

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

Highly Creative people do not retire.

The Creative spark, often first felt in childhood, is never forgotten.  To forget and let go of Creative work is to invite slow death by apathy.

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.

Filed under: Childhood, Passion | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Not Interested in Food or Sleep

Posted on September 12, 2010 by galarzamonsalve

Highly Creative people keep favored routines.  For ten days I’m writing about the routines of individual Creators, historical and current.


Rita Levi-Montalcini

Nobel Laureate Neurologist, Discovered Human Growth Factor, Italian Senator, Humanist

If you want to live to a 100, you might consider following Rita Levi-Montalcini’s routine: get up at five in the morning, eat just once a day, at lunchtime, keep your brain active, and go to bed at 11pm.

I might allow myself a bowl of soup or an orange in the evening, but that’s about it, she says. “I’m not really interested in food, or sleep.

The secret, she says, is work: she still goes to her laboratory every morning to supervise an all-female team developing her Nobel prize-winning research on brain cells, and in the afternoon she goes across town to her foundation in another part of Rome raising funds to help African women to study.

She remains a passionate advocate of the rights of women, and still remembers the thrill as a small girl of seeing women in uniforms driving trams in the First World War when the men were at the front.

I have never been ill, and I don’t see the impairment of my hearing and sight as a handicap, she says. She wears a hearing aid, and peers at you closely when you talk to her, but tells you – convincingly – my brain functions better today than it did was I was 20.

(Thanks to Richard Owens of The Sunday Times)

Filed under: Brain Care, Creativity by Habits, Creativity: Historical Perspective | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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