Category Archives: About Creativity

Praxis — What is it good for?

“But what … is it good for?”
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM in 1968, commenting on the microchip

Talking to very different scientists today, I was remembered of an image I saw in my mind some time ago. That there are scientists who are content (and successful) by standing on an island of theory, counting grains of sand. They see the ocean of praxis as unforgiving, often tempestuous, full of unknown and possibly dangerous creatures, and with a deep and slick bottom. Occasionally they dip their big toe into the water, but the second something touches their foot, they retreat and bury their toe into the warm sand. If forced, they do swimming motions on the shore and theorize about praxis, but they refuse to dive into the water.

Of course, if you try to swim, you might get lost, injured, or even drown. But you can also reach interesting shores and discover new lands — strange, new places not directly connected to the one you came from.

I wonder, is this view correct? Does praxis pose challenges that help scientists to move forward? Or are there scientists who should avoid the praxis, because it distorts or obfuscates? Is it different for (sub-)disciplines? For stages in research? For stages in knowing?

Know yourself — or not?

“Know thyself” – a maxim as pernicious as it is odious. A person observing himself would arrest his own development. Any caterpillar who tried to “know himself” would never become a butterfly.
“Nouvelles Nourritures” by André Gide

Today’s xkcd by Randall Munroe is … brilliant — and perhaps for some people very hard to stomach:

xkcd comic by Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com)

If after several trials you still don’t succeed, perhaps it’s time to seek a professional … it doesn’t have to be the great success, but at least incremental successes should be achievable.

What do you live for?

“It’s easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?”
Lorien in Babylon 5: “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?”

I’m currently working on the second edition of my “Organizing Creativity” book. It is still about half the amount of pages as the first edition, but new topics do get in. One — rather accidental — topic is related to setting priorities. If you are creative, chances are, there are different projects you can work on, and there is a lot more to do than you have time in your life. So there are a few lines on “having to many interests” (and how to deal with them) and about “Setting Priorities” (for which an idea collection is actually a great help — and very soothing). However, I also went a step further up — and that question is “What do you live for?”.

The longer I have spend in my working life, the more I notice that — at least today and in Western society — it is meaning in our life that we need, that drives us, that motivates us. A vision of something to accomplish, a personal mission to achieve (or at least contribute to) this vision, which tells you what kind of knowledge and skills you need, and how to evaluate whether you are successful in achieving it.

Or to put in a diagram (very simplified, of course, your knowledge and skills also define your vision and mission):

vision-to-outcome-small

Thing is, everyone has to find for him- or herself what their vision and mission is. And what they can contribute to it. But whereas this might be difficult, the good thing is, you can define it for yourself. It is much more difficult in the work setting, where others have to set this vision and define the organizations mission. Many organizations do not do it, or make it transparent, or make it believable (and the only way to do it is to really believe in it). And if this is missing people stay below their potential. I think this is one reason why so many people like to be creative in their leisure time, because then they can at least contribute to one vision, to make the world a little better for others.

But even then, the question remains: Your time here is limited, so, what do you live for?

Why Complete Freedom Is Not a Good Idea

“I’m free. Free of rules and reports, free of this life.”
“Free of life. Got another name for that – dead.”
Buffy, after becoming invisible, and Spike in “Buffy – The Vampire Slayer”

One thing that I always found strange is that some people wish to be completely free in what they do to be really creative. Not being forced to develop things for others, being forced to adhere to deadlines, or create remittance work.

It sounds strange, but I think that as much as we might wish complete freedom, it can actually be very bad for creativity. This might sound like betrayal if you are working in tight constraints, but consider it this way: if you had complete freedom, it would also mean that …

… no one gives you any feedback or issues any desires of things that might be interesting,

… no one cares what you do, because otherwise they would influence you, and

… you would not learn from anyone, because they would also influence you.

And without this, how can you develop yourself? So, in this regard perhaps some constraints, some deadlines, and some vested interest by others isn’t all bad.

‘Unleashing’ Creativity

I never did anything worth doing by accident; nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
Thomas Alva Edison

I got an interesting comment today:

pls provide tips for unleashing creativity

It has always been my position in this blog that ideas ‘just come’ when you spend time working on a topic, and that the main problem is not getting ideas but getting good ideas that you realize. Organizing Creativity is all about that and as succinctly put in this poster, I believe it is not only possible but needed to achieve great works.

But what if you do not get ideas automatically? A colleague of mine once told me that he thinks that great artists recognize when something either is interesting from an artistic point of view or has the potential to be interesting. A musician who is inspired by some sounds in his environment for a great tune or a photographer who suddenly stops because he sees a great motif would be perfect examples. These people can benefit hugely by organizing their finds. But if you do not belong to these people — what do you do then?

Frankly, good question, I have no idea. I have included creativity techniques. You find them in the HTML version of the first book, or in its PDF, and they are also in the draft version of the second book. But whereas I think that these ‘techniques’ can give you ‘an excuse’ to spend time ‘just thinking’ about a problem, I also think that they are totally useless unless you really, really know the subject.

Heinlein coined the acronym TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). This is also true for creativity. You can’t imagine it as a wild dog that you simply ‘unleash’ and that will do the work for you. You have to work yourself first, to get the materials to work with, and afterwards, to implement the ideas you had.

Time to Improve the Infrastructure

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels.
The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
Woodrow Wilson

It the time between the years — a time when things cool down, usually. It’s a time of remembering and looking in the future — and a good time to put an end to the tiny things that bugged you this year and that you do not want to carry into the next. The tiny annoyances, the small things that bug you enough to notice yet are below the threshold to actually do something about them.

If you think back at the past year, which things did bug you? Think on all the times it did bug you, tiny bites each, but taken together … now is the time to change it.

So, time to take out the trash, fix that leaking faucet, quit the subscription to that newsletter and to sort some newspaper clippings (and much much more).

Have fun & happy holidays :-)

 

The Images That Didn’t Make It

A Physician can bury his mistakes,
an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.
Frank Lloyd Wright

It’s easy to see artists as perfect, because the works you see — especially the works from commercially very successful artists — are only the refined and selected ‘best works’. You do not see the sketches, the mishaps, the blunders — or even all the slight variations that dot the way to each successful artwork.

So it’s nice to see that Slate shows “Contact Sheets” today as a topic, allowing you to have a look at the contact sheets photographers made and the pictures that were finally selected. And some of them are classic photographs most people would recognize.

If you ever wondered whether you are the only one who has to go through hundred of photos to get the one exceptional one, don’t despair. Whereas professional and well-known photographers might produce less “trash-bin material”, many of their brilliant photos were that one exceptional photo in a row. That is was there is exceptional enough.

What Art Should Do: Touching You Emotionally

Important: I did NOT create this video, I just stumbled upon it, and as linking was enabled on YouTube, I linked it here. The creator (Ryan J. Woodward) and team involved is shown at the end of the video. Just, just, just brilliant!

Just a quick intermezzo as I stumbled over a video that … well, look for yourself:

Ryan J. Woodward, the artist who did the video, gives some background information on:

Highly Recommended!

Note: After watching the interviews … that’s a hell of a way to deal with a midlife crisis — other people would have bought a Porsche. ;-)

This is not a game for me

“Son, where did you go to school? If I were you, I’d write them and get my fucking money back.”
Dimitri “Jimmie” Viner, in discussions with his flight test engineers

A while ago I had an interesting conversation with a young woman who works as musician for the US military. We found some interesting connections between science and music, but what really struck me was how she got a music teacher fired for not helping her to become better.

Yup — and she was right.

When she found out that the high-credentials teacher who was giving the course for aspiring professional musicians could or would not give her more help than just some standard stuff you could say to every interpretation of the music piece, she first tired to find better teachers outside of the music school. When this failed, because the school did not want to cover the expenses, she switched to a course that was done by a young teacher. This teacher was not as experienced, did not have all those credentials the other teacher had, and she usually taught the students who did not want to become professionals, but her feedback was much more valuable than that of the high-credentials teacher.

Now, when a really good musician changes courses to an apparently inferior teacher this starts a lot of talk, and by the start of the next semester, all the students of the high-credentials teacher wanted to switch to the young teacher. The school was forced to draw lots who might actually make the switch. After that semester, the high credentials teacher took a sabbatical.

While it may sound harsh and brutal to get a teacher fired this way, it was the best choice. Like she said: “This is not a game for me” — it was about preparing her for the future, allowing her to be successful as a musician. A teacher who gives only the same standard advice for all students, who does not allow her to become better, should not be tolerated.

It was the right decision and I wish more people would act the same.

Poster: How to Organize Your Creativity?

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

oc-poster-englishThe poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.