Paradoxes of Creativity

I like this list of eight paradoxes of creativity from creativity thinker Michael Michalko (author of Thinkertoys, among other works):

To create, a person must

• Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
  
• See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
  
• Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
  
• Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
  
• Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
  
• Desire success but learn how to fail;
  
• Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
  
• Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

These remind me a lot of the insights of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

What other creativity paradoxes can you add to this list?

[photo credit: RvO]

Comments

[Ben]

- TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS, especially the most obvious (your intuition tricks you a lot). The hard thing about it is that you don't realize how many you are making because they are mostly unconscious and they are SO subtle.

- On forgetting rules you've learned: I interpret "forgetting" as using them until they become an intuitive and effortless, then you see that the assumptions are over generalised. Example: the rule "the chess peaces bishop and knight are equally valuable, 3 points", then you forget it by learning that knights are better in a closed position and keep finding new 'layers' of subtleties that give one the advantage over the other.

- ASSUME there IS an elegant solution for a problem (even if it seems unreasonable) and be RELAXED by not knowing it and in general fall in love with the great mysteries of nature, with the large amount of questions you can not answer.

- Leave problems you can't solve. Work on YOURSELF instead of THE PROBLEM. Then come back to them.

[wall art]

That is a great post. Though there are other ideas which is quite crazy, I still love our ideas.

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[Andrew]

I really connected with this post. Made me feel relieved that I'm not as polarizing as I think I am. Or maybe I am or am not. Hmmmm. Thanks!