In fact, the only way to remain creative over time – to not be undone by our expertise – is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don’t fully understand.
People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.
Rejection process is not fun. It’s the red pen on the page, the discarded sketch, sometimes is the only way forward.
For too long, we’ve assumed that there is a single template for human nature, which is why we diagnose most deviations as disorders. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of minds. And that’s a very good thing.
The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.
The inconsistency of genius is a consistent theme of creativity.
Children can’t help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.
The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.
By the age of 3, children from wealthier households hear, on average, about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. The ratio is reversed in households on welfare.
Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It’s a skill.
I always wanted to be a scientist, I always thought I’d be a scientist, that was the narrative I was carrying around. I worked in a neuroscience lab as an undergraduate and then after, almost five years in total, but I realized I just wasn’t good at science. I didn’t have the discipline for it.
You know more than you know.
It is ironic but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.
Cities force us to interact with strangers and with the strange. They pry the mind open. And that is why they are the idea that has unleashed so many of our new ideas.
Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.
And so we keep on thinking, because the next thought might be the answer.
Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new.
Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true.
A lie told well is just as good as the truth.
Creativity is a catchall term for a variety of distinct thought processes.