I Love Art but I Have No Original Ideas

The Art of Having No Idea

How to get into the open land needed for creative thinking

'Am I being creative still'?

Nigh of my ideas never see reality. My brain moves a thousand times faster than my torso, burping out new concepts that seem brilliant to me all the time, but without whatever of the boring detail required to make them happen.

Bringing these projects to fruition requires patience and conclusion. Luckily I am blessed with a longing the size of Manhattan to exist creative — to pull stuff from within me and put it out in that location into the world.

That's my way of thinking almost what creative people do when it'southward going well: pulling stuff from the inside to the exterior.

Not to say that what comes out is all about them — it seems to me that what a creative does is tap into something much bigger, something shared merely invisible or unspoken — that's floating effectually in everyone'south consciousness waiting to be said or seen, simply that almost people overlook.

This is what stand-up comedians do; brilliant strategists; good artists; genius physicists; fifty-fifty horrible politicians — they call something out that'south just on the edge of acceptability but not quite there yet — and that is energizing; not necessarily practiced, but definitely mobilizing. It gets things moving.

Anyone who puts annihilation new in the earth is plucking a fruit from the invisible zeitgeist tree and putting information technology into the basket of ideas for us all to consume.

For a while it is challenging or controversial (Copernicus, Picasso, DH Lawrence); but eventually that raw, exciting kumquat becomes supermarket food and nosotros all get used to information technology. Nosotros integrate it into our style of thinking and it becomes normal.

This is what happens to every new idea: it gets integrated into daily life and starts to become dense and one-time like everything else. But for a while it carries all the energy of the unknown. That'south what creativity is — it comes from somewhere else that we don't know about. A place you can't think your way to.

And I know this because when I sit at my desk trying to exist creative, thinking about what to do next — I just get more and more frustrated until I find myself in a tiny hole where everything is night and I can hear my voice echoing off the sides of my empty tea cup proverb "I'll get in that location! I'll get at that place!" and nothing else. It never does get anywhere. Then instead I take to find ways to forget almost myself, and so at some point, unpredictably, something expert happens.

This paradox is what lies at the heart of all creative work, all innovation and all value that is ever created. At some point you have to take that yous take no thought. Then something may make it.

This constraint isn't express to artists, inventors or innovation teams — information technology is something we all need to principal. It's what we need to get skilful at in order to create the amend world that we all deserve to live in. But it tin't exist faked or rushed. Information technology'southward similar learning how to crawl over again, when we've been pretending we tin walk or fifty-fifty run for years.

Learning how to clamber is a proficient way of describing where I am personally in this journeying of inventiveness. I am starting to get it. I have these fleeting, vivid moments of insight that pb to possible action. But it'southward a very different matter from what I normally feel as an 'idea'. An idea is clearly a thought, whereas this other thing is more similar a vision or sense of knowing that pops into my head.

When people talk well-nigh Sergey Brin waking up one day with the algorithm for Google or Newton discovering gravity, I am sure they are talking about the same matter. At certain moments in the solar day, I become a fiddling inkling, a flash of what I want to do.

Information technology happens when I am well-nigh to melt dinner. If I turn my listen to what to brand and I think about the ingredients we have in the fridge, sometimes a fiddling picture arrives in my head — an image of what I'd like to cook. It isn't complicated, and it is always clear. I know exactly what I want to practice, with what $.25 and pieces and which herbs. This is based on absolutely no cookery competence — it's something beyond myself.

And if someone suggests another idea, I'm open to information technology, just underneath I already know what's going to happen — the dinner I imagined is going to come into beingness: considering it wants to brand itself; because it'due south already in that location.

This is what being creative means to me… to pick up on something that's already ready to happen — and help it to find a manner. When it works information technology's an effortless feel. It may audio abstruse or philosophical, just in reality it is practical and real. Information technology works with people as well as recipes: When I double-decker people or groups who are stuck on some problem, at some point the way forward wants to make itself known, and it arrives when the group is set. It comes when they have moved beyond worrying or thinking well-nigh the trouble and are enjoying playing effectually with ideas.

This experience has been given many names — it's been called the 'unconscious' by some, 'group mind' by others. What's important is when you begin to experience it yourself, in real life.

The interesting affair is — I haven't always been able to practice it. It is a new skill; or rather, it seems similar a new skill, maybe considering I only didn't notice information technology before. Similar the feelings of anger, bitterness and hurt experienced by a child then suppressed long into adulthood, our bodies and souls are total of submerged awareness; perceptions that are locked abroad until we start to discover them — for worse and for better.

So hither are my three tips for inviting that creative state:

1. Learn to have no idea

The only mode I've found that works consistently to generate an thought is to take no idea. This is harder than information technology sounds because nosotros are so used to having a picture of what we are doing. In any given situation nigh people think they know what is happening and what they should and shouldn't be doing (even if they don't like it).

The event is stuckness, equally they haven't allowed enough space for a new thought. Call up — new ideas don't come up from you. The fashion around this is to end, sit back and let your listen run idle. The brain is like a muscle — sometimes information technology needs to exist relaxed.

If yous can relax your brain from thinking, even if it's for a few seconds, and then y'all volition immediately be opening information technology upwards for new possibilities.

2. Undistract yourself

To bring something new into the world, y'all take to learn to strip away the things you use to distract yourself. We all accept treats and stimulants we use to fire united states up when nosotros're bored or tired (caffeine, adrenaline, chocolate) — or to fill space when we feel agitated (shopping, TV, Facebook).

The downside of these things is that they fill up the infinite that your encephalon needs to receive new ideas from the Great Unknown.

Then undistract yourself. Experiment with curtailing your addictions, even for one day at a time. And see how it goes.

3. If yous're not enjoying it, stop

The guiding star of all truthful creatives, and all children — don't persist in doing shit y'all don't feel like. How often have yous convinced yourself to push button through or finish a task you started, even when y'all're feeling tense and stressed in your body?

What outcome might have been possible if you had stopped for a moment and opened up to some other approach or solution?

Stopping is where it all starts. It doesn't mean y'all can't return to the task, merely that something in your mental attitude could relax to allow in more than perspective. This is all information technology takes, and it's a practice that is fundamental to anyone whose bread and butter relies on them responding finer in the moment, or collaborating closely with others. Which is basically everyone.

Nosotros all need to be artistic so that we can make a world that'due south fit to live in. Then why not starting time now?

Laurence Shorter is author of The Lazy Guru's Guide to Life (2016, Hachette Books) and The Optimist: I Man'southward Search for the Brighter Side of Life (2009, Canongate). He lives in Sussex with his partner and son.

Yous can meet Laurence in the No Idea space at www.laurenceshorter.com

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Source: https://medium.com/startup-grind/the-art-of-having-no-idea-f795208f8891

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