Creativity
Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little 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.
Creativity is just connecting things, as Steve Jobs says. And people who go into this creative zone, virtuosos of the imagination, those ecstatic technicians of the sacred spaces of human virtuosity, athletes when they get into the zone, scientists when they have their eureka moments, musicians, artists, when they enter these flow states, jazz musicians when they’re improving, Charles Mingus as he rhapsodizes through a tumbling thicket of ideas with such a sharp and vital alacrity that it can take the breath away.
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
You know that I’m very passionate about this idea of the flow state. This state of virtuosity and enhanced performance among artists and musicians and writers and elite athletes. They go into this zone where they experience this transient, hypofrontality, this temporary moment where the ego dissolves. You get sort of hyper-focused in what you’re doing. You drop into Theta states like meditating monks and you’re able to achieve excellence and virtuosity that exceeds normal human levels and thresholds for what is possible. We transcend ourselves in these moments of flow.
True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.
I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.
I never would have written I’m Yours or I Wont Give Up without a regular writing practice. Neither song came from me saying, I’m going to sit down and write me a song today. Instead, they emerged from a regular habit of playing guitar and channeling my thoughts, feelings and emotions through song. In other words, a habit of making stuff up. Or in a deeper sense, becoming an instrument that Spirit gets to play...I could add that the process is mystical, healing, uplifting, etc. But those instances are rare, or are often only experienced when looking back at a completed section. The moment I were to say, this is magical, I would then be observing it, thus removing myself from actually being a part of it. Therefore in songwriting, whenever possible, it’s best not to think at all, and just hand yourself over to the play.
Somehow, humans, even humans who are still very much identified with their mind, many of them are touched by when they see or hear or whatever – come into contact with – something that came out of that deeper level, whether it’s a work of art, or a piece of music, or it could just be somebody talking. And the words come from that deeper level. It could just be somebody who has a good sense of humor – even that is already a form of creativity.
These flow states are finally starting to be understood, thanks to neuroscience. The part of the brain responsible for self-editing literally goes dim. So there is this thing, a kind of scrambling of the self. There is a scrambling of the super ego that’s trying to correct everything you do and sensor and filter what is otherwise collective subconscious—active imagination, so to speak. And I think that these artists, these athletes, when they go into the flow state, I’m sure that they’ve had their 10,000 hours of practice in whatever their skill is, but then they go into that flow state. Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go. They shut down their lateral prefrontal cortex and they enter the realm of the numinous, the realm of the imaginal, the realm where the dream becomes real. That space, that head space of flow is the place where dreams are born.
Creativity is contagious, pass it on.