“The human eye makes three fixations a second on the world around it, and not at random. Our gaze is drawn to items we suspect have something new to tell us — posters, signs, windows, vistas, busy streets.

“Confined to a featureless physician’s examination room, we desperately seek a magazine, lest we be reduced to counting the holes in the ceiling tiles. Cornered at a party in a banal conversation, we seek to freshen our drink.

“Without new information to assimilate, we experience a highly unpleasant state. Boredom. Conversely, at one time or another, each of us has felt the joy of information-absorption — the conversation that lasts late into the night, the awe at a magnificent vista.

“Cognitive neuroscience — the science that seeks to explain how mind emerges from brain — is beginning to unravel how this all works. At USC, my students and I use brain scanning to specifically investigate the neuroscience behind the infovore phenomenon.”

Continued in his article The 411 to avoid boredom.

[Image from book The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World - by A. J. Jacobs]

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personal growth books, developing creativity, self improvement resources,irving biederman on infovores, neurophysiology and creativity

“So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.

“Artistic creation, sports, dance, teaching, counseling — mastery in any field of endeavor implies that the thinking mind is either no longer involved at all or at least is taking second place.”

From article: Don’t Take Your Thoughts Too Seriously.

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The image is from The Matrix Revolutions (2003). This statement is from a site for the book Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy, by Pradheep Challiyil, PhD :

“Morpheus tells Neo that, like him everyone is a slave to the false world of The Matrix. When we are in the prison of the mind, we really believe whatever we want to believe, under its influence. Our wonderland, our life of misery and suffering, is the rabbit hole we dig with our narrow notions and relations of our mind.

“We make ourselves a slave to the mind and its limited potential with our own notions.”

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creative potential, limitations of awareness, eckhart tolle on personal growth, consciousness and not knowing

The book The Michelangelo Method promises to use the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer as a model for gaining insight into our own creative life, and releasing our music – our potential talents.

Here is an excerpt from the book :

Susan worked as a legal assistant for a major law firm. Her daughter, “the flower from my compost heap of a marriage” as she put it, had recently left for college on an academic scholarship.

With her daughter launched, Susan was left to consider her own path. She looked down at the ground below her. “Dull cement,” she said, “and my feet were planted in it long before I had a chance to choose.”

Susan wanted a change. She was dying for a change. But to what? She had no idea. And wasn’t it too late already? After all, she was nearly 42.

Susan couldn’t think constructively. She believed that she had no choices. Here was a bright, articulate, capable woman who, in her own mind, could never do anything right and believed she had missed her chance anyway.

Susan thought her life nothing more than a giant “might have been.” If she hadn’t married so young, she might have had a relationship she was happy with. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, she might have finished law school. If she had finished law school, she could have been the lawyer and not the legal assistant.

Susan couldn’t figure out where to begin. Her early enchantment with the law had faded. She wanted a new life, and her greatest fear was, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, that she might die with her music still in her. For Susan, it was time to start playing her own music.

Working with a life coach, Susan asked, “How do I find out what exactly to do? Can you tell me?”

“You have to find it within yourself,” the coach said. “But I can start by asking you a few questions that will begin to reveal your gift.”

“But I don’t have a particular gift. I’m not gifted.”

If you were to ask someone what their gift is, chances are their minds will immediately turn to Michelangelo sculpting his Pietà or Einstein unlocking the universe’s secrets with a simple equation.

People tend to think of gifts in such extraordinary terms. They see a gift as an innate, exceptional talent, as something that few people in this life are born with. But they are wrong.

A gift isn’t just the province of the exceptionally talented, the successful, or the blessed. Quite the contrary, everyone has a gift. Some gifts are thousand-watt bolts of light. Others are hidden in the stone. All are there, waiting to be revealed.

Your gift lies in the place where your values, passions, and strengths meet. Discovering that place is the first step toward sculpting your masterpiece, your life.

Excerpt from “Finding Your Gift” By Ken Schuman and Ron Paxton – from The Michelangelo Method, posted on Oprah.com.

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The Michelangelo Method,personal growth books, developing creativity, self improvement  resources, gifted and talented products

“My wife is not an artist, but she has great taste. I run everything by her, sometimes daily as I’m working on a project,” he said. “She is my first level of screening. If she likes it, then I feel the confidence to proceed.

“My publishers’ opinions are also very important to me. Not just because they determine if my work is adequate. I admire and respect them a lot. I want them to like what I’ve done. I guess that, in general, I always need someone to like my work.

“If they don’t, my self-doubts come to the surface. You know, like I’m not living up to the grand fantasies I have about myself or about what my work should look like.”

Anne Paris notes, “We all need relationships with others to be at our best. When we are surrounded with support, we are more productive, happy, and energetic. Positive relationships help to move us forward and help us to grow.

“Positive relationships also help the artist along in his creative process. Good relationships can bolster our courage to take the plunge into creativity. And likewise, not-so-good relationships, or a lack of relationships, can inhibit our drive.”

From article The Need for Others, by Anne Paris, PhD.

Image from book Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto, by Anneli Rufus.

See quotes on the page Introversion resources.

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Anne Paris on creativity,developing creativity,personal growth books,creative process,creativity and fantasies,self-doubt and creativity,confidence and creativity

Writer Erica Jong has commented, “Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.”

Much writing and advice on enhancing creativity focuses on the individual. But creating happens in a social context, and often depends on input and inspiration from others.

Keith Sawyer, a professor of psychology and education, says the studies detailed in his book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration reveal that “creativity is always collaborative – even when you’re alone. It is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world: the ATM, the mountain bike, and open source operating systems, among others.”

Psychologist Anne Paris, PhD is author of the new book Standing at Water’s Edge: Moving Past Fears, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion, and notes “There are most certainly genetic and personality differences in how much connection we need to feel comfortable and at our best. Isolated or introverted artists often have a vivid and alive fantasy life of connecting with others that plays a powerful role in their creative productivity.

“Also, these artists may be turning to other types of connections (spirituality, play, pets, and other’s artwork) to sustain their work.

“For some artists at certain times, creative immersion may feel like the safest and most comfortable way of connecting with others, so their creativity flourishes even when they are isolated.” [From interview on her site www.anneparis.com]

Dr. Paris explains in her article A New Approach to Igniting and Sustaining Creativity, “Contrary to how we’ve been taught to value independence and autonomy, this new scientific evidence is showing that we are at our best when we are connected with others.

“Applying these findings to the secret, internal world of the artist, the capacity to be creative is actually generated by the experience of connectedness with others.

“When we are feeling frightened or are lacking self-confidence and vitality, we need to look at the state of our relationships, rather than to blame ourselves for being weak and inadequate, or to think that we must somehow find strength and courage from deep within ourselves.

“We cannot create in a vacuum of isolation: we are helped along in the creative process by certain kinds of emotional support from others that help us to be at our best and to realize our full potentials.”

Related pages / articles:
Collaboration
Creative collaboration
Nurturing creativity in solitude
Being a social animal and creative

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group genius, personal growth books, developing creativity,creative productivity, creative expression

“Almost nothing does more psychological damage than criticism.

“Criticism comes at us from the past, as bad memories and as our own introjected ‘inner critic.’ It comes at us every day, at work and at home. It even colors our sense of the future.

“Some of it is minor and only ruffles our feathers a little bit. But a surprising amount of it is toxic, as bad for our system as any poison.”

Continued in his article Introducing Toxic Criticism.

This sort of “poison” can also come from our own minds. Healthy criticism can help refine our talents and creative projects in the pursuit of excellence. But when it is based on excessive perfectionism or an unrealistic self concept, criticism of ourselves can be destructive and self-limiting, eroding our creative assurance and vitality.

Highly creative and talented people are often susceptible to perfectionism and unreasonably high standards and expectations that can lead to this exaggerated criticism.

From my article Being Creative and Self-critical.

Image: Anton Ego, the food critic in the movie “Ratatouille.”

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eric maisel on toxic criticism, inner critic, self confidence, negative self concept, pursuit of excellence,developing creativity

In his article Do schools kill creativity?, Sir Ken Robinson notes that “kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong.

“Now, I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.

“And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong… And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

“Picasso once said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it.”

Related post: Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

My related article Getting out of school alive.

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creative capacities, school experiences and creativity, ken robinson on schools, developing creativity,divergent thinking

Dancer, choreographer and teacher Carol M. Press, Ed.D. writes in her book The Dancing Self, “Creativity’s profound effect affirms what binds us together as a species. Creativity contributes immeasurably to the health of humankind; before we understand and accept our differences, we must acknowledge and feel our common bonds.

“This commonality is critical to human existence. Our ancestral heritage ensures that we are social animals, born to live in relation with others.

She adds, “Anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake in her book ART and Intimacy asserts that art-making is an intrinsic human capacity that has psychobiological foundations. Through such creative endeavors people experience, express, and elaborate their common interests in finding meaning and competence in their lives.”

Dr. Press quotes Dissanayake: “Aesthetic experiences transcend simple short-term self-interest, making us aware of our embeddedness or participation in an expanded frame of reference that is larger than ourselves.”

Linda Seger has written a number of books on screenwriting and filmmaking, and talks about the value of “web thinking” in her book with that title.

She writes of the emotional and career values of collaboration instead of hierarchy, and networking as a support for one’s actualization, not simply a way to make business contacts.

Sally Field has commented that she feels “Actresses and other women in the industry need to have contact with each other. Not to tell sob stories, but to kick each other in the butt creatively.”

[From my article The Company of Women.]

Another value of social connection is emotional support. Creative expression and personal growth often involve courage and dealing with fear.

Referring to a variety of research studies, Robert J. Maurer, PhD, a family therapist, writing consultant and instructor at UCLA, has commented in his classes that those people who are able to reach high levels of personal and professional success have a healthy acknowledgment of fear, and they also honor the need to be comforted and supported when extending outside comfort boundaries.

See list of his articles.

Recognizing and honoring our organic needs for interconnection can help us stay energized and creatively engaged.

But some interactions can inhibit our creativity and talent expression.

Creative people were often seen by other kids as outsiders in school, and may still feel that self concept when ‘grown up.’

A couple of teens writing in the book When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers articulated some of this impact:

“Other kids made fun of us as nerds or called us stuck-up. It was not true, it was just that we weren’t sure how to relate to some of our peers. We were informed that we were smarter by our teachers, but to a child, that is just plain ‘different.’ We needed help understanding ourselves.” Erin, 19

“Gifted kids tend to hide their intelligence, as well as their talents, for a very simple reason: Conformity.” Claudia, 16

Books:

The Dancing Self: Creativity, Modern Dance, Self Psychology and Transformation Education, by Carol Press.

Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began, by Ellen Dissanayake.

When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs, by Jim Delisle et al.

Image at top from Web Thinking: Connecting, Not Competing, for Success, by Linda Seger.

Related pages:
Collaboration
Social reactions/interactions
Social reactions/interactions – teen/young adult

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personal growth books, developing creativity, pressure to conform,creative collaboration, creativity and social relationships

“The danger of censorship in the United States is less from business or the religious right or the self-righteous left than from the self-censorship of artists themselves, who simply give up.”

Writer and director Frank Pierson (former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) added, “If we can’t see a way to get out story told, what is the point of trying? I wonder how many fine, inspiring ideas are strangled in the womb of the imagination because there’s no way past the gates of commerce.” [LA Times May 26, 2003 - quoted in Utne, Sep/Oct 2003]

Censoring – both internal and external – is discussed by Eric Maisel, PhD in his article Are You Censoring Yourself? – in which he talks about “the artist’s relationship to society.

“Most of us would be quick to say that we are free to think just about anything and to express ourselves in any way we see fit.

“In reality, artists do a lot of measuring, somewhere just out of conscious awareness, about what is safe or seemly to reveal and what is unsafe or unseemly.

“One aspect of this self-censorship is the way we bite our tongue at our day job and, in a corollary safety measure, skip making art that reveals what our corporation, institution, or agency is up to.

“These are knotty psychological and practical matters that confront virtually every artist.”

Related Talent Development Resources page : Censorship.

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self censorship, personal growth books,creative expression, censorship of artists, conscious awareness and creativity

“We notice the thought – for example, ‘I am running from my writing’ – and acknowledge that we had the thought. The thought comes, we notice it, and it goes.

“The central goal of ordinary mindfulness is to let such thoughts come and go without experiencing pain, without holding onto them, and without turning them into monsters that eat us alive.”

But the goal of creative mindfulness, he explains, is “not only the nonjudgmental observation of your thoughts but complete right thinking that leads to authenticity, creativity, and mental health.

“The high ideal of creative mindfulness is to master ordinary mindfulness, in the sense in which Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others have described it, and to employ that mastery in the service of deep thought, rich action, and wide-awake living.”

Maisel enumerates six principles of creative mindfulness, including:

“Fearlessly observe your thoughts. All of your excuses, all the ways you unhinge yourself, all of your dodges, all of your secret complaints and sources of pain, are right there in the thoughts you are thinking. Awaken to the knowledge of your own thoughts.

“Free your neurons, empty your mind, and ready yourself for creating. Ordinary mindfulness is the observation of thought. Creative mindfulness requires that you vanish, your mind hushed, so that your creative thoughts can appear. Open to an ever-deepening silence that is pregnant with your coming creative work.

From article: Mindfulness, by Eric Maisel, PhD.

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Eric Maisel on creative mindfulness,developing creativity, mindfulness, creative thoughts, creative mindfulness