CONQUER FEAR AND WISE UP
“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.”
We are thinking about the life that we just left behind, and have entered a space that is isolating, unknown and frightening! For a change, we have to live with ourselves with the 'digital only' interaction. For a change, we have to give up the idea of being rampant consumers and start living with bare essentials. For a change, we have to power and polish our minds to focus on our next creation!
“Don't just be a consumer, be a creator. Somewhere inside you is a masterpiece waiting to be exposed.”
As an exercise to find how this 'thing' called 'creativity' works, we venture out in this audacious journey to demystify creativity. The 4 nuggets that we jot down here is our humble way in trying to harness creativity.
Perhaps you ask, "Harnessing creativity? How very arrogant." After all, Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing apparently nothing is the grand master of creation that the planet has ever known. Why do we need to put effort in harnessing creativity? The short answer, in a culture obsessed with doing, we simply cannot comprehend the idea of just sitting and doing nothing will make us more creative. Hence, we postulate the 4 ways to flirt with creativity.
In the blogosphere, dominated with '5 Quick Tips', '7 Awesome Ways', '3 Must Haves' we bring you 4 pieces that goes into making creativity happen!
Perhaps you ask, "Harnessing creativity? How very arrogant." After all, Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing apparently nothing is the grand master of creation that the planet has ever known. Why do we need to put effort in harnessing creativity? The short answer, in a culture obsessed with doing, we simply cannot comprehend the idea of just sitting and doing nothing will make us more creative. Hence, we postulate the 4 ways to flirt with creativity.
In the blogosphere, dominated with '5 Quick Tips', '7 Awesome Ways', '3 Must Haves' we bring you 4 pieces that goes into making creativity happen!
Be insanely curious about anything and everything. As Arne Dietrich, Professor of Psychology mentions creativity can be deliberate and cognitive. That means you have to be perpetually on the lookout for information that is new and happening. Every 'bit of information' that is specially not part of your core discipline when combined with other knowledge nurtures the seed of creativity. As Professor Dietrich puts it, deliberate and cognitive creativity comes from the PFC in your brain. The PFC is responsible for focused attention and connecting the dots between information that you have stored in the other parts of the brain.
Image: GobalShop 2019
Look at data and information at innovative ways. Find out how your audience digest information. Pew Research Center survey explores these five broad dimensions of people’s engagement with information and finds that a couple of elements particularly stand out when it comes to their enthusiasm: their level of trust in information sources and their interest in learning, particularly about digital skills.
When the nobel laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus reversed the circle of "low income, low saving & low investment", into a circle of "low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment, more income" he put together existing information in new and novel ways being extremely deliberate and cognitive in his creation.
“Prisoners who never wrote a word in the days of their freedom will write on any paper they can lay hands on,” says Dorothea Brande in her classic, Becoming A Writer. ”Innumerable books have been begun by patients lying on hospital beds, sentenced to silence and refused reading.” Furiously unplug while you’re incubating your project. Spend time with yourself in solitude. It is the fertilizer for your creative crop. Spend time on yourself doing something festive.
Set an Artist Date for yourself. Visit museums and monasteries, hike through widerness, attend “lectures on the odd, the improbable, or merely interesting… participate in musical performances by traveling Tibetan monks”...or do that which brings you in touch with yourself. This creates a rich tapestry of new images, thoughts and perspectives that gets seeded in your subconscious, to be revealed when you are at emotional crossroads. This gives rise to what Professor Dietrich says deliberate emotional creativity.
Explore these virtual museums and find ways to incubate new ideas.
Image: GobalShop 2019
“Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.” The Art of Scientific Investigation, a must read by W.I.B Beveridge In this book, he explores the minds of the most famous scientists of watershed discoveries. His conclusion: serendipity, intuition, and imagination displays the habits of mind that produce good ideas." “[Intuition] is always in response to something.”
When Frederick Kekule's (1829 - 1896) saw the dream of a snake coiled and biting its tail; in an intuitive flash, he realized that the molecular structure was characterized by a ring of carbon atoms. It is important to recognize that Kekule was immersed in the problem of how atoms combine to form molecules, and he was focused on benzene. Intuitive outcomes are prolific when there is a strong emotional focus and intention to solve a specific issue.
This "eureka" moment of a sudden flash of knowledge is what Professor Dietrich calls spontaneous and cognitive creativity. It involves the basal ganglia of the brain that operates outside your conscious awareness. "Out of box thinking" requires the conscious brain to stop working. By doing this, your subconscious takes the driver seat and the PFC is activated in connecting information in new and novel ways.
“The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” Leonardo Vinci.
Creative inspiration is mysterious. When the conscious brain and the PFC are resting, it is then possible for spontaneous ideas and creations to happen.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sums it up very well. ”When I am… completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer — say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.
“Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory…[and] if I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account…
All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodical and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance… What a delight this is I cannot tell! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing lively dream.”
Amygdala is the seat of spontaneous and emotional creativity. These spontaneous and emotional creative moments are very powerful, such as an epiphany, or a religious experience. This type of creativity is not cognitive. But often skill (writing, artistic, musical) is needed to create something from the spontaneous and emotional creative idea. As Professor Dietrich mentions, you cannot design for this experience to happen. It is spontaneous!
"Each man comes into this world with a specific destiny: he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally, you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you." osho
Your ideas and your thoughts will open up new worlds.
Use the panic and pause of these turbulent times to create!
Happy Creating!
Reach out if you are in need of inspiration.
Social isolation might be the trending keyword, but, your mind need not suffer the pangs of separation.
Your ideas and your thoughts will open up new worlds.
Use the panic and pause of these turbulent times to create!
Happy Creating!
Reach out if you are in need of inspiration.
Social isolation might be the trending keyword, but, your mind need not suffer the pangs of separation.
100 WAYS TO TAME FEAR AND ANSWER THE CALL OF YOUR INNER CREATOR
1. Rise above negative thoughts by consciously choosing positive thoughts
2. Rise above imagined bad situation by removing the label “bad” 3. Rise above failure by realising failure isn’t final – try again, try it in a different way 4. Rise above good & bad labels by dropping labels. 5. Rise above problems by seeking solutions. 6. Rise above interesting to meaningful 7. Rise above every day analysis of 'why this' to solution finding and sharing exploration 8. Rise above past & embrace the present 9. Rise above criticism and extract the good from any feedback 10. Rise above mistakes & cherish the journey 11. Rise above can’t, drop the “t” and explore can 12. Rise above individual expectations to common goals & unity 13. Rise above excess & explore to do with less. 14. Rise above being trapped in thought & learn to free your mind 15. Rise above sense fulfilment & explore your senses to the full 16. Rise above outer thrills & seek inner calm 17. Rise above “if only”, cherish “as is” & create “what if” 18. Rise above negative self-talk & practice positive inner dialogue 19. Rise above a noisy self-defeating mind & sense the gaps 20. Rise above hearing & actually listen 21. Rise above anger and seek solutions 22. Rise above “should” and experiment with “could” 23. Rise above blaming & start aiming 24. Rise above the need of certainty & embrace uncertainty 25. Rise above reactivity & unlock your pro-activity. |
26. Rise above complexity & incorporate simplicity 27. Rise above time bound & consider the timeless 28. Rise above homogeneity & embrace diversity 29. Rise above imperfections & accept individuality & uniqueness 30. Rise above approval seeking, and be you – THE REAL YOU 31. Rise above hypotheses to workable and practical 32. Rise above “What can I get?” to consider “What can I give?” 33. Rise above rushing & embrace the moment fully 34. Rise above the job of delivery & exceed expectations 35. Rise above comfort to gratitude 36. Rise above the known & journey to the unknown 37. Rise above impermanence & embrace & celebrate every moment 38. Rise above material possessions & enjoy health, value, love and REAL MEANING 39. Rise above quantity & appreciate quality 40. Rise above rigid & fixed to flexibility, versatility & finesse 41. Rise above jargon & create user-friendly, transparent & direct interaction 42. Rise above efficient to exceptional 43. Rise above pleasure seeking to pleasure giving 44. Rise above individual vision to providing overall provision 45. Rise above reckoning to reasoning 46. Rise above insightful to delightful 47. Rise above one tracked to multi-dimensional 48. Rise above short-term satisfaction to long-term contentment 49. Rise above brilliant to outstanding 50. Rise above the ordinary & reach for the extraordinary |
51. Rise above the picture & the thousand words to float and dream in space of nothingness. 52. Rise above the walls & move beyond the boundaries 53. Rise above the year & consider 100 years from now 54. Rise above control & sense the freedom of letting go 55. Rise above the commotion & pause 56. Rise above ground level and soar in the open skies 57. Rise above other-investigation to self-investigation 58. Rise above logic to imagination 59. Rise above finality to flexibility 60. Rise above needing to reach a goal to enjoying the journey. 61. Rise above yesterday to today 62. Rise above specialness to uniqueness 63. Rise above words to the wordless 64. Rise above frustration with creation 65. Rise above needing to helping 66. Rise above “Why?” to “Why ask why?” 67. Rise above the need to be perfect and enjoy imperfection 68. Rise above yardsticks & create a new measure 69. Rise above repetition to expedition 70. Rise above doubt by recognizing doubt is thought |
71. Rise above bad habits by replacing with good habits
72. Rise above discounts to enhancements 73. Rise above short-lived to legacy 74. Rise above the muddle & restart from clarity 75. Rise above rules & consider new options 76. Rise above petty problems by considering the vastness of the universe 77. Rise above differences to embrace similarities 78. Rise above temporary imbalance and celebrate universal harmony 79. Rise above scepticism & bathe in potential 80. Rise above problem seeing to problem solving 81.Rise above momentary illusion & permit yourself to dream 82. Rise above disbelief & entertain wonderment 83. Rise above knowing & embrace new learning 84. Rise above seriousness & entertain a fantasy 85. Rise above the commonplace to the rare 86. Rise above the already learned & welcome curiosity 87. Rise above winning & enjoy taking part 88. Rise above insults & focus on the millions of good things 89. Rise above certainty & explore fascination 90. Rise above what you can’t do & focus on what you can do 91. Rise above need to choice 92. Rise above longstanding rules & invent new rules 93. Rise above the drama of the moment to a year from now 94. Rise above imagined superiority of humans & embrace the planet 95. Rise above conditional love to unconditional love 96. Rise above what’s wrong & focus on what’s right 97. Rise above the planet & contemplate the universe 98. Rise above barriers of confinement to the potential of infinity 99. Rise above what you think & explore what you feel 100. Rise above for an aerial view |