Today, July 10th , we continue the discussion for the Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club’s fourth book.
Anyone who has read our current discussion book can participate by commenting. You can also join our public BBGMBC Facebook group, if you would like to join us in reading one excellent quality book per month and then discussing it here.
And without further ado, let’s keep the discussion of Imagine: How Creativity Works by Johah Lehrer going.
I was intrigued by one of the comments in yesterday’s discussion by book club member Lynne Spreen. She commented,”There’s a part on page 68 that explains how the brain, having finally understood something, is changed forever. And I felt kind of emotional, reading this. It seemed so beautiful, almost holy. To think that this is what our beautiful brains are laboring to achieve, and that such growth and development is possible! Made me feel like I was witnessing creation.”
I will share a few notes from the book that jumped out for me in the comments.
In the meantime, if you did any highlighting or underlining, feel free to share a few favorites in the comments below with or without your remarks.
Try to jump around the book a bit so we get a range of ideas.
Comments on this entry are closed.
And also thanks to Lynne for sharing about how to make highlights and then print access them via our Amazon accounts. What an awesome tool!
I was taken by the idea that happiness and creativity are more compatible than unhappiness and creativity: Page 32: “More recently, Beeman has demonstrated that
people who score high on a standard measure of happiness solve about 25
percent more insight puzzles than people who are feeling angry or upset. In fact, even fleeting feelings of delight can lead to dramatic increases in creativity.”
This totally makes sense to me because creativity and happiness create a virtuous cycle for me. I want to do little things to make myself happy to keep myself creative and keeping creative keeps me happy.
I was also taken by the idea that we are more creative in the morning when we are half asleep. I’ve always been a big proponent of getting up early, especially when I’m on a deadline. And I’ve often noticed I can get more done in a few good morning hours than I can in other whole days. So here’s the quote:
“Another ideal moment for insights, according to
Beeman and John Kounios, is the early morning, shortly after waking up.
The drowsy brain is unwound and disorganized, open to all sorts of
unconventional ideas. The right hemisphere is also unusually active…We do some of our best thinking when we’re half asleep.”I’m a morning person, so I never think of myself as half asleep once I get up. But who knows?
I agree with Lynne. This is a special book. And it makes sense to me. It gave me a sense of freedom from rules and boundaries. My favorite quote pg 25 loc 470 is one from Albert Einstein, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” When I have a problem -writing or in some other facet of my day, I take a timeout, put it out of my conscious mind. Eventually the answer I need comes to me.
I have lots of highlights. Some faves are:
“the imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.” (I love this because for me it rings true. Once I have a format to pour my ideas into, the thoughts just start flowing. Without any constraints, my mind tends to wander in so many directions that I can’t catch a thread and follow it)
“When ideas are shared, the possibilities do not add up. They multiply.” (I like this because it encourages me to discuss ideas before they may feel fully formed. Discussion helps to unconceal deeper truths and allows us to see connections we would not find on our own. My natural tendency is to keep things to myself before I feel sure of them, but that is not likely to lead to the most creative — or correct — solutions)
“If it feels easy then you’re doing it wrong.” (Loves the discussion of persistence with respect to creativity, especially because I was chugging through an e-book revision as I read it, and feeling like writing is hard work, not just some mystical flow state that people idealize. It’s always good to be reminded that creativity is both deeply gratifying and a whole lot of hard work.)
Some quotes that stood out for me:
” Before there can be a breakthrough, there has to be a block.” So freeing as I fear the block.
The yoga teacher in me loved the section about relaxing activities encouraging alpha waves in the brain. “When our minds are at ease- when those alpha waves are rippling through the brain- we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere.”
” The imagination is vaster than we can imagine. We just need to learn how to listen.” Another very yogic comment.
” A mediocre team will screw up a good idea. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team and let them work together, theyll find a way to succeed.” Every manager should have this on her bulletin board 🙂
” The power of dissent is really about the power of surprise…… The imagination has been stretched by an encounter they didn’t expect.”
“If the internet is going to become an accelerator of creativity, then we need todesign websites that act like our most innovative cities….we must engage with strangers and strange ideas. What we need now is a virtual world that brings us together for real.” I am not sure what he means with the last line. I can see the benefit of interacting & being surprised by engaging with different ideas & people. But will we get the same creative spark that ignites with some of the face to face interactions?
” Sometimes we need to relax in the shower and sometimes we need to chug caffeine. Sometimes we need to let ourselves go, and sometimes we need to escape what we know. There is a time for evey kind of thinking.” I like this reminder that one way is not always the best, so we stay open to exploring different methods.
Yes, happiness leads to insights and is helpful for divergent thinking. But mild depression and negative moods act “like a mild dose of amphetamine” (page 79) and are helpful in convergent thinking when someone needs to stick with a project until what they have created is clear & compelling.
“The necessary interplay of these different creative modes–the elation of the insight, and the melancholy of the unconcealing–begins to explain why bipolar disorder…is so closely associated with creativity.” (p.79)
This was reassuring to me, since I do tend to cycle between highs and lows (although my highs are never quite high or extended long enough to be considered true mania–thank god). Knowing that different moods, and different strategies for moving a project forward (short walk, shower, or just sticking with it when you want to get up and scream) are all beneficial to the overall project takes some of the pressure off.
Thanks for these, Heidi! They are all ones I highlighted, too.
I loved all the references to the usefulness of failure, since fear of failure holds so many people back:
“…the feeling of frustration–the act of being stumped–is an essential part of the creative process. Before we can find the answer–before we probably even know the question–we must be immersed in disappointment, convinced that a solution is beyond our reach. We need to have wrestled with the problem and lost.” (p.6)
“Fail Big.”
“We know that screwups are an essential part of what we do here. That’s why our goal is simple: We just want to screw up as quickly as possible. We want to fail fast. And then we want to fix it. Together.” (p. 169) This reminds me of one of Pam Slim’s tenants for building a solopreneur business, “Test often, fail fast.”
I also loved learning that debating the validity of ideas adds to a persons creativity. “Beginning a group session with a moment of dissent–even when the dissent is wrong–can dramatically expand creative potential. The power of dissent is really about the power of surprise. … You start to reassess your initial assumptions…which leads you to think about the problem from a new perspective.” (p. 163)
Other favorites include pieces on daydreaming and serendipity:
“…people who consistently engage in more daydreaming score significantly higher on measures of creativity.” (p. 48) … But, “Letting your mind drift off is the easy part. The hard part is maintaining enough awareness so that even when you start to daydream you can interrupt yourself and notice a creative thought.” (p. 49)
“What I realized is the that the kind of thinking I do here [on the hike] is so useful that I needed to build it into my work routine. It wasn’t enough to just daydream in my spare moments, while sitting in traffic or waiting in line. I needed to be more disciplined about my mind-wandering.” (p. 50)
“Sometimes the most important idea is the one we don’t even know we need.” (p. 208)