I’ve been think about the creative process a lot lately, and one thing I’ve found is that the story of any creative journey is usually cut short.
As with most stories, you don’t include all the details. You just hit the high points, right?
Whenever we hear about someones success in creativity, whether it be in business, the arts, or life in general, an important element is lost in the retelling of creative inspiration. The struggle and wrestling of ideas, before having a creative breakthrough, is often left out.
This video says it best:
[tentblogger-vimeo 38798735]
Isn’t this encouraging?
Jonathan Assink says
See, the funny part of that video being from Jonah Lehrer is that he was recently exposed to have fabricated or plagiarized content and interviews used in his books. So, I don’t know if that’s a creativity fail, or points for extra creativity.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/183978/plagiarism-more-fake-interviews-in-jonah-lehrers-imagine-how-we-decide/
Honestly though, creative work is work. It sounds very zen to say that we find the answer when we stop looking, but the same is true about looking for your keys, you find them in the last place you look. You don’t keep looking after you’ve found your keys, and you don’t find creative solutions when you’ve exhausted all possibilities and give up. You find them when you work hard and piece things together and eventually come up with a working solution. Sometimes that takes minutes, sometimes that takes days, sometimes it takes years.
Eric Dye says
Ironic.
Plagiarizing isn’t very creative, eh?