Today marks the second anniversary of the Creative Think blog. I've written 300 posts and received about 2,500 comments. It's been an interesting experience and I've gotten to meet many people from all over the world.
To mark this occasion, I thought that I'd take a card from my trusty Creative Whack Pack. Here goes. It's Pause for A Bit. Let's see what it says.
Poet Doug King on the value of incubating: "Learn to pause . . . or
nothing worthwhile will ever catch up to you."
Allow the Muse to
whisper in your ear. How would your problem benefit if you paused in
the next hour? Day? Week? Month? What might you gain or learn?
What can you back away from? What issue would benefit from a pause?
This seems like pretty good advice. So I think I'll pause for a bit and let a few worthwhile things catch up with me!
[If you're looking for some good creative thinking ideas: click here and scroll down, and there and scroll down.]
All good things must come to an end. Thanks for sharing your creative thoughts.
Posted by: Fake Alain Bernard | 29 September 2008 at 01:23 PM
Good luck with your "pause," Roger. I've enjoyed your blog a lot!
Posted by: Jay Thurber | 29 September 2008 at 02:23 PM
oh..
now i see..
it was a creative blog...
keep it up
thanks...:)
Posted by: popoy | 30 September 2008 at 05:25 AM
Go one step further than a pause and take a nap. I hear they can be excellent creativity boosters!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/technology/28proto.html
Posted by: Fake Alain Bernard | 01 October 2008 at 10:27 AM
Roger,
I won't pause before congratulating you on your second anniversary.
If you mean the pause means no more posts for a time, I hope that pause is brief.
John
Posted by: John S. | 03 October 2008 at 11:22 AM
I like that poem. How would your problem or issue benefit from a pause? It's best not to stew about the problems in the interim but to be open to the peace that comes with the celebration of the present.
Posted by: Paul C | 09 October 2008 at 06:40 AM
Paraphrasing what a very wise person once wrote, "Be still and know that He is God!".
Posted by: Randy Bosch | 10 October 2008 at 01:34 PM
The great thing about a pause is the implied promise of the "next" :-) Look forward to that "Next"!
Posted by: archita | 17 October 2008 at 08:58 AM
Roger,
Two quotes come to mind.
"Less is more"!
"Slow down to speed up"!
As we move through our busy life and job we really do need to pause to allow the right brain time to work on our problems. Thanks for your blog.
Posted by: Eric | 27 October 2008 at 03:37 AM
while you're pausing check out
http://worthtobeblogged.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Fling | 31 October 2008 at 04:46 AM
Roger - I hope you are enjoying your pause. However, I am really missing your blog. Will you be posting again soon?
Hope all is well!
Posted by: Karl Boggs | 06 November 2008 at 10:38 AM
It was what I thought it was.
You are pausing.
Enjoy the paws.
Posted by: Stephen Howe | 19 November 2008 at 02:31 PM
C'mon Roger, I think today you should come back as its the Philosophy Day. You might want to reflect on something!
Posted by: mk | 24 November 2008 at 12:07 AM
Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
developed, and sensitive perception of variety. Thus
aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.
Human is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes
his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall
that his other features are but vehicles of experi-
ence intent on the development of perceptive
awareness and the following acts of decision and
choice. Note that the products of man cannot define
him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-
making process and include the cognition of self,
the utility of experience, the development of value-
measuring systems and language, and the accultur-
ation of civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
creative process, is a choice-making process. His
articles, constructs, and commodities, however
marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idol-
atry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own
highest expression of the creative process.
Human is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and
significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his
singular and plural brow.
- from The Season of Generation- Choicemaker Joel3:14 Psalm 25:12
Posted by: Jim Baxter | 01 December 2008 at 02:48 PM
THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son
of man that You visit him?" Psalm 8:4
A: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against
you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
your descendants may live." Deuteronomy 30:19
Q: "Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?" Psalm
144:3
A: "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose
for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the
gods which your fathers served that were on the other
side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15
Q: "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is
born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" Job 15:14
A: "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He
teach in the way he chooses." Psalm 25:12
Q: "What is man, that You should magnify him, that You
should set Your heart on him?" Job 7:17
A: "Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his
ways." Proverbs 3:31
Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son
of man that You take care of him?" Hebrews 2:6
A: "I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have
laid before me." Psalm 119:30 "Let Your hand become my
help, for I have chosen Your precepts."Psalm 119:173
References:
Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23
Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
DEDICATION
Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history
a Bible-Believing Christian
an authority on the Bible's Book of Daniel
committed to individual value
and individual liberty
Daniel 9:25-26 Habakkuk 2:2-3 selah
"What is man...?" Earth's Choicemaker Psalm 25:12
Posted by: Jim Baxter | 11 December 2008 at 09:39 AM
CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
"I should think that if there is one thing that man has
learned about himself it is that he is a creature of
choice." Richard M. Weaver
"Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and
impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges
his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts.
What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
adjusts his behavior deliberately." Ludwig von Mises
"To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be
presumed that the human being is responsible for his
actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart
from the presumption of freedom of choice."
John Chamberlain
"The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary
of the orderly laws of cause and effect, of probability
and of chance, of which man is not completely informed.
It is complementary of them because it rests in part upon
the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator
with the power of individual choice."
Wendell J. Brown
"These examples demonstrate a basic truth -- that human
dignity is embodied in the free choice of individuals."
Condoleeza Rice
"Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered
universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the
universal order of things. Stated another way, they
believed in God. They believed that every man must find
his own place in a world where a place has been made for
him. They sought independence for their nation but, more
importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to think
and act for themselves. They established a republic
dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preserva-
tion of individual liberty..." Ralph W. Husted
"We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching
that we can choose either to accept or reject the God
who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the
Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
equally free in our relationships with other men.
Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer
and social freedom for its completion." Edmund A. Opitz
"Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the
worse that has made possible life's progress."
Charles Lindbergh
"Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for
oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibil-
ity of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not
a man but a member, an instrument, a thing."
Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Jim Baxter | 11 December 2008 at 09:42 AM
Roger,
Hoping that you are amidst a positive "Renaissance" as you enter the new year!
Posted by: Randy Bosch | 31 December 2008 at 01:12 PM
It's funny that I came across this post because I just decided that what I needed is a rest from doing the same old thing.
I like your blog, think I'll bookmark it :)
Posted by: Neil the Freelance Copywriter | 04 February 2009 at 06:26 AM
Love your articles, pause, rewind, replay.
Will keep visiting here as it is a welcome break
Posted by: Anistock | 10 March 2009 at 04:18 AM
roger, obviously i haven't been here for a while. it's only today that i noticed your pause.
hope everything's going well for you. you are a true inspiration.
Posted by: isabella mori | 17 March 2009 at 08:32 PM