Art and Science

It’s not me, It’s Bad Design!

(via Flickr)

Don’t wait for inspiration!

Imagine if you could turn on creativity like starting a car, rev the engine to get up to speed, cruise along in the fast lane, and then park it in the garage until you needed it again; or imagine turning your creativity on/off like you do with the faucet. Seems pretty easy and radical, isn’t it?

Sadly, the world doesn’t work that way. Inspiration is something that has to come from within the mind, the body and the soul. Watching movies, listening to music, strolling near the beach may be some of the useful methods to help you garner ideas but are unlikely to influence the creative mind in you. You have to think rationally and start working!

Edison, the inventor of inventions once said -

“Success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.”

Not much has changed since then. Here is a funny comic I found while strolling the web. Waterson, the creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comic series has a peculiar knack of adding humor in his comics. It is quite profoundly prevalent in many of his comics and has “inspired” many other artists to follow this attire.

You can’t always sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work. They understand that you are not born with creativity … and you have to cultivate creativity on an ongoing basis.

Recent scientific studies show that everyone is gifted with virtually unlimited potential for learning and creativity.  Most of us perceive creativity as a trait acquired through practice and schooling, although slightly true, is just a heuristic approach towards learning and crafting your brain and to hone your creative skills.

Most of us assert the fact that creativity is fixed at birth and only those who are born with it are able to pursue it in the right manner, whereas the rest of us who pick the art of understanding design via schooling and appropriate courses and sometimes self-learned, cannot reach the levels of creativity achievable by the former. This is as true as the iPhone 4 which can make perfect calls!

Matt, one of my favorite writers on the web explains his thoughts on whether a good artist embraces talent or skill, or both. Its quite a great read actually, considering many of us are unaware of the true insights of what makes a good artist.

Anyways, I will leave you to ponder over the statements and scrutinize your perceptions about Inspiration and leave the rest to your imagination to linger with….

On a side note, I will be writing an extensive article about how seeking inspiration is just a speck in the Universe of Creativity; in about a week on my blog. So, stay tuned…….

“Fail” more, win more…

Success without taking risks is impossible. Mistakes are a part and parcel in the process of achieving extraordinary results. A good designer is not taken apart by such mistakes, rather he learns from it. Gain wisdom from your own mistakes and use this to accelerate self-improvement. Learning from mistakes along with risk taking is very essential to foster creative thinking. The important thing is to view mistakes as a useful stepping stone to a higher reality and better outlook on life. This is all a part of being able to develop creative thinking for the future!

So, take an initiative, learn failure to understand success.

Do not wait for inspiration. It can seem impossible, like trying to drive a car with more water in the tank than petrol. But you just have to get out and push. Better to advance by inches than not to advance at all. Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric light bulb among many other things, gave a celebrated definition of genius as ‘1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’. Creative thinking, paradoxically, is for 99 hours out of every 100 not very creative: it is endlessly varied combinations of analysing, synthesizing, imagining and valuing. The raw materials are sifted, judged, adapted, altered and glued together in different ways.

I was reading a great article on the Fast Company blog and I think there are a few points worth mentioning here:

The single biggest blocker for creativity and original thought is fear. In our society, we are so focused on success and afraid of making mistakes that we don’t pursue our dreams. Don’t live life to our fullest potential. Don’t let our creativity shine.

The person who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.

In school, we have classes on all sorts on functional skills such as science and math (by the way, when was the last time long division came in handy for you at work?). One skill that that few of us ever learn, however, is how to make mistakes: How to learn from setbacks. How to embrace failures to enable future successes. How to get up from being knocked down, and rise up with the confidence of the undefeated.

I believe a required element of public school curriculum should include a class called MAKING MISTAKES. It would teach kids that mistakes are okay. That it is better to try and fail than never try at all. That every bull’s eye is the result of 100 misses. It could help grow their confidence and resilience, and prepare them for the dynamic and constantly-changing world of the future. The course could be fun and funny. Maybe the goal is to “fail” the class instead of pass, and the students are rewarded and each mistake they make.

Simply put: “Fail” more, win more.