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Picture: Credits to Hugh
MacLeod & Vitor Bellote
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“You cannot force
creativity to happen—every creative person can attest to that.
But the essence of creativity
is making connections and solving puzzles”
(Nancy C. Andreasen, Neuroscientist)
Creativity is connecting things. In other word, making connections where none existed
before is what creativity is all about. The world is our field. Thus, there are
practically unlimited possible connections that can be made. We are making
connections all the time as part of our learning process. For example, a lot of
things happen when I’m doing one thing and I’m not thinking about what my mind
is doing. I’m either watching movie, I’m reading a book, eating my lunch and
then – I make a connection. It may have nothing to do with what I am doing, but
somehow or other I see something or hear something or do something, and it pops
that connection together. People use to say, millions saw the apple fall, but
Newton asked, ‘why?’
“Creativity is just connecting things,” Steve Jobs, late CEO
of Apple told Wired magazine. “When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel
guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed
obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect
experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were
able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more
about their experiences than other people… Unfortunately, that’s too rare a
commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse
experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with
very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.”
Jobs told a story when he
took calligraphy in college, a course with no practical applications to his
life then. But after he came back later he used his knowledge and skills to
added Macintoch, the first computer with beautiful typeface, fonts, and
calligraphy. The dots were connected. Creativity is connecting things. Can be
few years from now, can be months from now, can be in a minute later. So how to
connect the dots? Here are my suggestions (at least, these are the things that I
do myself):
§ Carry a
notebook and keep track of everything
– especially in the toilet (sometime I just write ideas on tissue!)
§ Read to add
more knowledge. Logically, the more
knowledge you have, the more connection you can make.
§ Play or try to
experience more things in life. Most
of the time, connections just happen when you least expected it.
§ Review the
last sermons or scratch or whatever notes you had wrote before. Recalling and reminding are the best way to spark creative
connections.
§ Try observation
skill. Just look around you and try
to make connections between things which may show similarity or maybe totally
unrelated.
Don’t just stare the ceiling, make connections.
Don’t just read and play, make connections.
Don’t just eat and sleeping, make connections.
Maybe just relax, and there is a connection!
God, Give Us
Today Our Daily Idea(s)
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