the spark of creativity

as i’ve started to explore this year, creativity is something i’m becoming increasingly interested in. i believe, like Ken Robinson says below, that every child is born with talent and it’s often the environment that either allows it to flourish or be squandered. there are people like Spencer Bell who are born with talent and never let the outside world tell him otherwise. i was quite the opposite. i don’t claim to have extraordinary talent, but it’s taken me 22 years to realize there’s another side to me…a side that looks for expressive exploration. i realize now that the world is not black and white.

this post was inspired by 6 TED videos i watched yesterday, and more specifically, the two videos below.

Ken Robinson – Schools Kill Creativity


some notable elements from this video:

if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original

• by the time you’re an adult you’re afraid to be wrong (kids aren’t)

hierarchy of subjects: math, languages, humanities, arts (why is everywhere around the world ‘math’ at the top?)

in the next 30 years, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history

creativity is something original of value

intelligence

• diverse (abstract, visual, etc.)
• dynamic (very interactive)
• distinct

if all the insects were to disappear from the earth all life on earth would end, if all human beings disappeared in 50 years all forms of life would flourish

 

Dan Pink – The Surprising Science of Motivation

some notable elements from this video:

incentives work really well for “if and” tasks. tasks that involve…

• a narrow focus
• straight ahead
• routine
• rule-based
• mechanical

incentives can actually lead to worse performance when the task involves thinking outside the box (probably because creativity needs acceptance of failure and financial incentives are at odds with failure)

the rather straight-forward jobs/tasks that used to be what the U.S. was about (e.g. auto line manufacturing) is gone and has been outsourced, the jobs left are those that require us to think conceptually, ones that don’t have a clear set of rules where the tasks requires more than straight-forward thinking (e.g. the “green” industry).

we need to rethink how we’re going to approach these definitional tasks of the 21st century

intrinsic motivation (vs external motivation)

• autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives
• mastery – the desire to get better and better at something that matters
• purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

traditional management is great if you want compliance, but if you want engagement, self-direction works better.

get the issue of money off the table, then worry about things that matter – intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mastery and purpose)

• e.g. “20% time”

ROWE (results oriented work environment)

• focus on results, not elements that don’t matter – things that management set out for you (meetings, schedules, work hours)
• case study: Wikipedia over Microsoft’s encyclopedia

theres a mismatch between what science knows and what business does

 

net result

in both education and business, creating an environment that allows for acceptance of failure, diverse intelligence and intrinsic motivation (that of autonomy, mastery and purpose) promotes creativity that brings originality and value in a way that solves problems and creates opportunities. basically, we (you, me, businesses, schools, America) need to rethink how we teach, promote and evaluate all forms of learning environments because creativity is a mixture of talent, failure and persistence.

and because i include a corresponding photo with every post, this one of recent creativity…

This Boy: Expressive Exploration

I’ve never really been a self-proclaimed “creative” person. I’ve pretty much been a straight-forward, quiet boy who kept to himself. Always a boy who has cared (way too much) what other people think. Always a boy with some sort of security blanket. Over the past year or two I’ve witnessed a transformation from that reserved boy to an expressive creature of exploration. A lot of it has to do with the destruction of a false-sense of confidence brought on by relationships and then the discovery of a stronger, new-found confidence, which has undoubtedly been built up through both personal achievements and the support of quite a few truly amazing friends and family members. But this transformation as of late has come from a side that I haven’t seen before. While I’ve always just claimed to “shoot life as I see it”, my perspective of creativity, and most notably photography, has grown from a fun activity into a passion to push the limits of life’s personal and external explorations. I noted in a status update the other day…

“lately i haven’t been satisfied with my photography. it’s not enough anymore. i’ve started asking myself “how can i push my limits to the extreme? how can i really wow people?” i guess we’ll see where this takes me…” Monday, 1:49pm

I’m still not sure where this notion will lead me. But what I am sure of is a shedding of a skin that no longer cares what people think, someone who craves life’s passionate expressions, someone who sits in a cube everyday and wonders “what’s out there that i don’t yet know about?”, and most importantly, someone who wants to uncover the world’s secrets through discoveries of himself.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little…I still care what some people think, I still have a professional life to maintain, still someone who thinks reflective journal entries like this and self-portraits are pushing the edge of narcissism, but this change is undoubtedly creating an optimism that is inspiring an anxious excitement and something that I look forward to exploring in the future…

 

…and if you’d like to follow along, you can do so here or here. whatever floats your boat …

that moment

it’s that moment. the moment right before you press that anxious but always steady index finger so gently down to hear that click and pursuing flash of a shutter speed. where it seems like that little moment in life will be captured for eternity. not just on film, but in your mind and in your heart. it’s that moment where you stop breathing and a million memories flow through your mind of what you want life to be and all those flashes of thought come down to a single moment in time. you hold your breathe as if you think this will be the moment you will always remember. the moment that will be burned into your brain as the lasting image of life. the moment that will change your life forever. the moment that shows your first love’s true smile as if it were the single greatest memory in life. or that moment where a soul is lost. or that moment that shows happiness truly has overcome fear. or the moment where no words can or even want to be spoken because the ensuing photo will exude life’s unexplainable occurrences. it’s that moment that keeps building every second like every moment you click up to the top of a roller coaster waiting for that moment where everything is out of your control and you feel that sudden but everlasting jump of a heartbeat. that moment in which you feel a sudden rush of fear and sadness and happiness, joy, love and heartbreak all at the same time. it’s that moment, that feeling and emotion that keeps you going before you attempt to capture life’s eccentricities into a single shot. it’s that moment where you forget all your worries and fears because that sudden emotion that runs through every part of your blood stream as it injects into your heart for a final push to overcome what you fear might come out of that moment, something short of what you’ve imagined. that single moment that seems to bring out every emotion you’ve ever felt from the deepest of days to those shinning moments you’ll never forget, as if comparing the two moments side by side couldn’t possibly be achieved except for in that moment. that single moment of eternal forgiveness and thoughtlessness that is undeniably persistent to the point of no return. that moment where you’ve reached the end, the final moment of happiness where you know that this coming shot isn’t just a photograph, but a journal, a diary of life’s ranging emotions all built into one moment. that one moment that seems to have a soundtrack of life playing along. it’s that moment, that only moment where you know how to express your true feelings that have been locked up since forever. that moment where the overflowing emotion has nothing left to do but flow out of your heart, not as a seeping volcano, but that of a flash flood, one that cannot and will not be stopped as it pours unto it’s canvas. it’s that moment, that only moment in life right before you feel a sighing relief of content because you know, like they say, that everything truly will be alright. that moment where you can’t resist the temptations of a moment too early…or too late. that moment that after it’s over, it can’t be undone. that moment right before you feel an accomplishment in life so great it seems to rival any other moment in life so as to exude the power of love. it’s that moment, that single moment right before you press that anxious but always steady index finger so gently down to hear that click and pursuing flash of a shutter speed. it’s that moment.