A few years ago a friend of mine looked at my calculator (one from high school first grade) and commented:
“You know Albert, that calculator in your hand is more powerful than the computer that put the first man on the moon.”
I was about to go speechless. I had barely moved my grades up my nose with him, while the “less fortunate” peers saw new horizons!
Then you could tell he had my attention. And now I hope to have yours as well. But there is much more to this story.
You may have noticed that having all this help can work against your ability (and willingness) to engage critically with ideas, puzzles, and other thinking tasks. Why would you when you could only google it?
But here’s the problem.
As with the illustration that my friend did, what he described to me was that while I viewed my calculator as an aid, he showed me that I should look specifically as a tool. This tool could not do more than what I set out to do. I had set limits on him and it would only serve me to the extent that I was willing to push those limits.
Very recently I applied that approach to my writing. After spending the better part of 2 hours staring at my computer screen doing pointless searches, I decided to take a 30 minute pencil and paper break to generate a content outline.
In about 10 minutes, I had outlined the general structure of this very article, and so many other interesting nuggets emerged that I will have to cover those elements in a later post. What a return on the time invested: 10 minutes in silence for what he had not achieved in 2 hours! I wonder how many others have had a similar bite.
He highlighted the creative process.
I discovered that these are key characteristics of the flow that occurs when you disconnect from the tools and release your creative human element. These don’t necessarily happen chronologically and it feels like chaos of thought at times. Don’t let that get in the way. You can always connect the dots later, but don’t lock them so they don’t land on the page in the first place.
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Ideas and knowledge
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implement
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revision
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Send
IDEAS AND PERSPECTIVES
Begin by writing random words on a blank sheet of paper. It may seem silly at first, but you will soon start to see connections and patterns with what you are writing. At this point, your INSIGHT is developed. This is where statements start to mean something to you, even if they seem unrelated at first. The words “Milk” and “Sand” you wrote may make you think of a place you visited or inspire a recipe of some kind. This will vary with all of your various interests, but once the creation process begins, the unknown things start to become a reality.
IMPLEMENT
This is where you follow that strange train of thought. Say that our word example “MILK + SAND” reminded you of a pleasure visit to the ranch at your grandmother’s house. Write down what you felt or what knowledge it brought you. Did she bring you a tune that you once sang with her? Hmmm out.
At this stage, just follow what is coming your way. With this, you are exercising your creative freedom and getting out of the “I won’t rock the boat” compliant mode.
What if all this comes to nothing?
Some of these processes will seem very fruitless, I must say. But notice that you have these channels open again, now you can recognize when you are being creative and stop being afraid of it. It will feel more natural and you will get better too.
REVISION
This is where your more conservative side comes out to assess the good (and weird) you’ve been doing. Hopefully this is where you say:
“Wait, I’m not going to make a sand and milk shake, am I?”
Here I would agree with you. The compost pile outside may like it, but it may not do you much good.
The review stage is where you filter out the weird, the obviously correct, and those moments of genius as well.
SEND
This is where you can act on your idea, now concept. Write about it, do it, design it. This is where her cell-sized creativity has grown into a grown person and she’s ready for a ride, a run, a flight to the moon.
So you can do it too!
It will feel strange, but it might as well go from looking at the moon to standing on it. If your classmates think you are crazy, yes you are! So finish what you started so they can really appreciate how crazy your idea was!