Today, July 11th , 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 really intrigued by the ideas about how creativity works alone vs. how creativity works together.
Heidi Smith Luedtke shared one of her favorite quotes in the comments section of yesterday’s blog post:
“When ideas are shared, the possibilities do not add up. They multiply.”
She said, 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).
I also found the discussions of the ways some companies promote creativity to be fascinating.
In my own work, I often find myself encouraging writers to both master creative alone time and then get out and share what they offer with the world. It’s a bit different than the formal approaches that the companies used as examples promoted, because most of the people I work with are:
a. moms
b. work from home
c. have kids
d. need time to create
e. then need to be able to concentrate in the time they carve out
f. need to find the capacity to complete work that is started
g. about ten more steps that I won’t even go into here
f. and then, as if this wasn’t all hard enough, they need to find ways to get their works out into the world and share them, both in person and virtually
So, I guess in some ways, I felt that there were huge important parts of a discussion on creativity that were not even touched upon by this book. But on the other hand, I found the parts that were touched upon to be very interesting, and often found myself nodding along and finding echoes from my own work in this book (emphasis on chutzpah, teaching folks to do (not just theorize or discuss doing), and I completely resonate with the idea of creativity being cultural.
So, let’s save the issue of whether or not there is sexism in the book for another day (even though it’s definitely on my mind), and just look at this idea of balancing your creative wealth when you are alone with the creative wealth of others…what do you want to say about this?
I don’t have a preconceived answer. However I found the juxtaposition of the two ideas to be a great conversation starter. And I felt that there was so much more to say about topic of creativity alone vs. creativity together.
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I love this book.
Creative wealth is enhanced any time we consider books of a different genre, learn a new skill, meet people who are significantly different, and for me when I play with my grandchildren and see things through their eyes. Each of these in some small way colors how I view the world and as a result adds to my creative wealth, makes me more open to new ideas. The compounding of all these things in each of us is what determines our creative wealth and its results.
Some of us chose to do this, but even those who don’t are adding to their ability to be creative every day, they just need an opportunity to be open to it. And of course some will be better than others. That’s what makes it interesting.
For me, I feel I need both alone and together creativity fixes. What I miss most about working outside of the home is that connection and magic that happend when working with a great team, even when we had mediocre ideas or boring material.
Courses like yours combined the two types well- we had individual creative time plus opportunity to share and engage with others to enhance what we created solo.
Loved MLTCG’s comment about her grandchildren expanding her worldview. I so get that from my children, opportunities like this BBGMBC and my in-the-flesh book club by exposing myself to books and ideas I would never find on my own. Yesterday, I read that you should not form book clubs with friends (or at least not let that be their only book club) as then you tend to stay with homogenous material. All ways to bump into each other and create as a by product.
I loved the organization of this book and the way creative alone was handled separately from creative together. As I read the creative together section, I yearned to move to a larger city and get a job in an office so I could have co-workers. I understand, though, that those 2 things by themselves would not make me more creative. Instead, they would create other problems I would have to solve. So I think the lesson for those of us who live in more rural communities and don’t work in large companies is to translate the lessons from creative together into solutions that can bolster a more solitary creative life.
While I do work outside of my house, I work for a single individual. So whether I am doing my own creative work or work for my boss, I’m usually alone.
My Third Spaces, those non-home, non-work spaces where serendipitous conversations and knowledge spillover may occur, are essentially limited to interactions online and while listening to the radio. Facebook and Twitter are great for bringing random thoughts and disparate reading material my way, and I often bookmark things for further consideration. I also get to listen to about 3 hours of NPR during my daily commutes, and gain a ton of new ideas this way. Two of the characters in the novel I’m writing were inspired by stories I heard on various NPR segments. However, IMAGINE drove home for me the point that I get much more out of one-on-one interactions than virtual ones.
My hope is to increase the number of actual, physical Third Spaces I frequent. My first plan is to attend more of the events hosted at an art gallery where I work. Each Thursday night, there is a different speaker or performance in addition to the amazing visual art that is always displayed. I get a huge rush out of being around artists of all types, and think that focusing my interactions in this way will bring big rewards. There are also plenty of bookstores around that host author readings that I really should get out to.
It can be a challenge to balance the need to be home alone creating one’s own work with being out in the world to recharge the batteries, but I think this book makes it clear that creatives really do need to push themselves to have interactions with other people, even though those interactions cost energy and time.
Sorry! Make that “an art gallery NEAR where I work.”