Long practice teaches an artist to direct their gaze in an unusually focused way; it trains them to repurpose areas of their brain; and it changes the very structure of the brain’s neural networks. Ocean’s unusual patterns of thought – and his unusually developed brain – were normal in trained artists. Other neurological researchers have shown that

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Creativity arises from making new connections—contemplate unexpected things together. Don’t wait for moments of inspiration to strike. Creativity is a muscle; exercise it. There’s a logic to creativity: find what works for you, break it down, and you have a process that can serve you forever. Unstructured freedom is the enemy of true creative

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What is creativity, really?

Too many artists, scientists, and writers talk about their creative process as a blackbox—an ephemeral spark that’s difficult to explain and impossible to predict. But it’s not. Boden is one of the most influential cognitive scientists to think about creativity through a computational lens. Her work is rooted in the... See more