Finding Your Creativity

Finding inspiration isn’t the easiest thing to do. Most of the time you just stumble on it. And when your creative endeavors lie outside of your occupational career, said inspiration seems to strike at the least opportune time. So how can we make time in our (very limited) schedule for find that creative spark and build new ideas?

Isaac Asimov, professor and great mind of Boston University, suggests brain-trusts built upon steady aim to better those creative concepts; those of who are not afraid to cross boundaries and question modes of authority in fair, logical (sometimes not) reason. Something worth noting with someone who that can take an existing idea and make it better, regardless of industry or field. A meeting of the minds, so to speak.

Bonus points for his awesome sideburns.

“The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”

To workshop is to make better. To cross your connections is audacious, but necessary in further developing otherwise plateaued ideas.

When he suggested this notion, the internet was not as prevalent. It wasn’t as simple to say, “hey let’s discuss possible solutions for _______.” It took a little more effort. But now, with humanity on the brink of virtual reality, these meetings can be commonplace. Skype sessions and live streams; sharing feedback can be easier than ever before.

Alas, I realize things aren’t that terribly easy. Parents, as I’m sure, will be the first to express that notion. Likewise, those of us with several jobs, minimal resources, overtime paycheck-to-paycheck workers — lifestyles that don’t necessarily allow for the time to be creative and generate new ideas for endeavors outside of the immediate source of income. I get it. I’m in that boat sometimes, too. It’s not easy for those of us whose source of income is separate from the realm of said chosen creativity. Only few are lucky enough to sustain that lifestyle.

But Asimov never said it’d be easy. Rather, he notes the opposite. It takes a certain type of person to push mentalities to that level of commitment; “A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance,” he says.

Feeling like you’re the type? I hope so if you’ve read this far. I hope you’re the kind of person who is passionate about your creativity (regardless of its application). In a notion enlightened to me by Tom Adams, an advocate for self-improvement, the best thing you can do is reach out to others. You have the power to make it easier. It just needs the drive; your drive.

In the aforementioned concept, if it were easy to be creative, trying to find the inspiration should be rendered as significant as the creation itself. Do yourself a favor and read this article in MIT Technology Review archives, “Isaac Asimov Asks, ‘How Do People Get New Ideas?’” The article, published in 2014, stems from ideas and concepts discussed between he and Arthur Obermayer, friend of Asimov, in their earlier collaborative years.

Above all else, take the time to better yourself and #becreative. The world needs more people like you.