Creativity as a Compass
Embracing Radical Change — Part One
In a series of three articles, you’ll be given a perspective on how we might embrace this time of radical change, steer ourselves through the storm of fear and grief, and use creativity as a compass to move from isolation to solitude.
We are facing a time that is asking us to think creatively. Incubation and isolation suddenly became an overwhelming part of our lives. We are asked to stay inside our homes and away from the people around us. We are faced with radical change. It forces us to conform ourselves to do something extreme, which goes against our human nature. It might have you feel scared, frustrated, angry, and upset. Our minds can run us off the deep end. Often, these periods of suffering, discomfort, loss, and failure are where we grow. We might not have been ready for what is coming our way, and we are not used to dealing with this level of insecurity. But how might we embrace this time of radical change and use it to evolve, think forward and innovate?
Fear of the unknown
When we are faced with radical change, we tend to reject it. Fear is perfectly natural and appropriate when we are facing danger and loss. It is an intelligent part of us because it tells us to take care of ourselves. Our brain has an evolutionary and inherent fear of the unknown. Our brain constantly wants to predict what will happen and chooses to use past experiences rather than ambiguous information. Another evolutionary remnant is a fear of social rejection. We are dependent on the social group for survival. Often unconsciously, we incorporate the opinion of the social group for survival. This became visible in the first weeks of lockdown when people initiated hoarding, and others followed. It shows us that following others is not always keeping us safe. Especially not in a situation like this, where we can’t fall back on our previous experience.
While most of us are unconsciously reacting to our evolutionary reaction to fear, another part in us can be awakened. Our more adventurous ancestors would dare to wander off the beaten track with the risk of being killed. But the reward of discovering new plants, animals, and tools gave them an advantage over the others. Despite our evolutionary fear of the unknown, we have a nervous system in which discovery stimulates the pleasure centers in the brain. Creative minds generally have a bigger drive to explore new things. But here is the thing, we all can tap into our creative minds. In this time, our wandering might get others killed, so we have to find new ways of wandering.
So, how might we use a more creative mindset to steer us through this extreme time of isolation? How can we use this time to our advantage?
The Power of Imagination
People came up with the idea of the Machu Picchu, something that we can’t begin to comprehend how that ever happened! We all have the unique ability to imagine a world that isn’t our world yet. When we use our imagination, our brain creates an image in our mind, using the same part of our brain used for seeing. Only now, it combines different pieces of knowledge from our memory and creates something new. It is about customizing what already exists. Creativity is about making an unfamiliar combination of familiar ideas. To invent something new, the most important skill we use is creativity.
Creativity and Intellect
We are conditioned to think that being creative is a skill that you either have or you don’t. We have also been told that it is not smart to pursue a creative career. When you believe creativity is merely expressed by artists, you might be distancing yourself from your own creativity. The image of creativity has stretched in the past decades. Being creative has expanded from artists to “creatives” or “creative entrepreneurs,” but still, it suggests that ‘being creative’ is a skill that only a specific group of people possess. Most of us don’t even recognize the creative part in ourselves anymore.
On the other side, the artists or creatives have learned that there is little value in what they do. They bring new perspectives, ideas, and creations to the world that few people know how to value or even understand. This makes them usually believe they are of no value to the business world. They don’t have the skills that the world sees as valuable, so therefore they are less intelligent, economically wise, and successful. The art world and the business world have been driven apart. But there is a significant loss to be found there. Some people are disconnected from their imagination and creativity, while others might not use their intelligence to the fullest.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” — Albert Einstein
The difference between imagination and intellect is that intellect is predominantly used for convergent thinking. This way of thinking is linear and systematic, and it is used to narrow down multiple ideas into one single solution. Imagination is used for divergent thinking, which is flexible and iterative. This will help you come up with as many potential answers as possible and focus on the connection between these different ideas. Convergent thinking focuses on what is best, and divergent thinking encourages creative risks even if this means they sometimes fail. Both are needed to find an innovative solution to a challenge. Let that be the thing we all are in desperate need of right now.
Balancing brain halves
When we look at the two hemispheres of our brain, we have learned that we use our right half for creativity, intuition, creation, feeling, and imagination, and our left brain is used for analysis, logic, ideas, facts, math, and training. Some functions are specialized within a particular side of the brain, but research has shown that we use both brain hemispheres equally. They can’t even establish that the right hemisphere is our creative brain. This is good news because it means that creative thinking doesn’t depend on a single mental process or brain region.
By studying Einstein’s brain, experts have found that he had a very strong connection between the two. This suggests that a good relationship between hemispheres might be the source of our level of intelligence. The more connected they are, the more intellectual we will be.
This extreme situation forces us to open up to radical change and use our creativity and imagination to find new solutions to problems, big and small. The urge for innovation is high. We see so many creative expressions around us every day, but not all will be able to get to that place. For some, the overwhelming intensity and effect this change has on their lives might have them feel paralyzed and unable to think creatively. It would be best if you nurtured what is causing your creative block before you can step into your creative thinking.
Five Tips for Creative Thinking
- Embracing Failure & Fear of the Unknown
- Embracing Imagination & Creativity
- Embracing Radical Change & Ambiguity
- Embracing Growth Mindset — believing that intelligence, personality, and creativity can be developed
- Embracing Possibility & Adventure
Continue reading the next in this series of three:
Part One — Creativity as a compass
Part Two — The Effect of Fear and Grief on Creativity
Part Three — The effect of Solitude on Creativity
>> As a former gallery owner and Contemporary Art & Design Curator, I have switched my perspective from supporting and highlighting thriving creativity to bringing movement to creative blocks and stretching the fields where creativity is thriving. After years of working closely with numerous artists, designers, architects, fashion designers, graffiti artists, skateboarders, musicians, dancers in the deepest subcultures, I am now bringing these insights of the creatives to build a bridge and bring Creative Thinking to all humans and all fields who desire to grow theirs. <<
