The routines and the mentality of creative people
Living involves solving (or, at least, try to solve) a series of daily problems that never cease, of greater or lesser importance depending on the circumstances, luck and personality of each one.
Most problems can be solved routinely , imitating the solutions that have instilled us or that we see applied by the society that surrounds us, or in a different and personal way, seeking originality, trying to find a better alternative.
Creativity: in search of better solutions
All problems, by definition, have at least one solution; since if a situation lacks a solution, it ceases to be a problem and becomes a tragedy, misfortune or bad fortune. Some mathematical problems (exact and pure sciences) present unique solutions; Some mental or philosophical problems present two opposing solutions (they are the dilemmas of "being or not being," for example).
But The most common problems of human life (impure sciences and practical philosophy) present a variety of options to face them , although not all are easy to see if the look with which we approach them is not accompanied by the creative spirit.
Know more: "What is creativity? Are we all" potential geniuses "?"The routines of creative people
Does this mean that we should reject by all means the routines that life offers us? Not much less. Routines have an unfair fame . It means, only, that in front of any routine solution we must question whether we are able to optimize it or find a better routine, based on other methods and other concepts.
The great progress made by humanity has consisted and will continue to consist, precisely, in to turn into efficient routines the solutions hitherto incapable of being systematically solved or that implied inefficient routines. Converting an operation of appendicitis or cesarean into a simple surgical routine was a great progress. To change the routine of going to wash the clothes to the river by the domestic washing machines, to be able to speak by telephone with any inhabitant of the planet to a blow of finger has turned into lucky routines of our time. Millions of successful routine solutions shape our current well-being.
Routines that improve our well-being
As the great philosopher and mathematician said Alfred North Whitehead : "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations that can be carried out without having to think about how to do them". Creating a routine to solve a problem where there was not one is one of the greatest potentialities of creativity: antibiotics to cure infections; Internet to expand knowledge, are paradigmatic examples.
Avoiding Alzheimer's, overcoming cancer, avoiding huge economic inequalities or reversing climate change are four of the many pending challenges that we face today.
Tips to be more creative
The first step of the creative is to detect a problem where the rest of humanity does not see it or does not dare to face it. Without making the mistake of confusing the creative nonconformity with the systematic discontent, the rebel without cause, the whiny inoperative. The second step is to define and delimit conveniently the scope and scope of the problem . The third will be to find what solutions exist in other countries or environments different from our usual. The Internet and its search engines are, at this point, invaluable help.
If we find what we were looking for, we will substitute the routine of our peers for the one learned in the network. We will be innovators and we may have followers and we believe trend. Otherwise, we will enter the fourth stage of the process: creative reflection, the active search for alternatives. It is the phase in which we will have to resort to our right hemisphere, our intuition, our unconscious, our sensory stimuli, our dreams, our open and uninhibited mental associations. And at this point is when texts that teach us to trust our sensory stimuli, avoid creative blockages of any kind and use strategies, techniques and mental methods to help produce the essential inspiration are useful for our brain. A lot has rained since Alex F. Osborn In 1957 he invented his famous "brainstorming" and great contributions have been made by many authors in the aid of creativity.
Creative or visionary?
Being creative is not about seeing what nobody has seen or doing what anyone else was capable of doing (these would be, in any case, two superpowers of comic book superheroes). Being creative is "thinking what nobody had thought, associating elements that nobody had associated before" .
All the great steps of progress have been born of an imaginative mind that has associated with freedom things that until then nobody had dared to join. Being creative does not consist in seeing what nobody has seen before or in having a magical power to transform ideas into realities. Being creative is about seeing the same thing that everyone sees, but thinking things about it that nobody had ever thought of before, making a new association brought by the imagination. With the help of the right mental strategies.
It may interest you: "The 14 keys to enhance creativity"A slow but persistent progress
Everyone knew from prehistoric times that a hollow trunk could sail like a nutshell; and they broke their arms paddling to move it. Everyone had noticed that the wind can push the leaf of a plant and carry it long distances. But It took centuries until someone imagined a leaf tied to the shell of a walnut with a vertical stick . It is very possible that 3,500 years ago it was an Egyptian boy who told his parents: "I want to test if the wind that drags a palm leaf can push a shell over the Nile", and his parents would say: "What a beautiful idea! We will help you prove it. "
The invention of sailing was the main technology of maritime transport until the invention of steam at the end of the 19th century. All the great world empires relied on it to trade and impose their military dominance. But the Egyptian child we have imagined was humanly impossible to foresee the true dimension of his creation. Well - we should not doubt it -, also in our time, a child could open the key to the mental concept we need for our technological progress from the evolved objects that surround us.
Changing the paradigm
We need to be perceptive, attentive to the creativity of our best minds: children and good creatives . The blackness and immensity of the unresolved or poorly resolved problems that haunt us, forces us to resort, no doubt, to it.
If we are allowed a play on words: We must acquire the routine of looking at all the problems that surround us in a creative way. To build the routines that solve us in a systematic and stable way, the problems of humanity that we are not solving in the right way.
Bibliographic references:
- Demory, B. Creativity Techniques. Granica, 1997.
- Guilera, L. Anatomy of creativity. FUNDIT- ESDi, 2011.
- Siqueira, J. Applied Creativity: Tools, techniques and key attitudes to be more creative. CreateSpace, 2013
