Creativity

I said earlier that if we want to encourage creativity, we should just get out of its way. That was an ambiguous statement and I’d like to clear up some of the ambiguity. I will insist that creativity is not rare at all, which becomes clear once we identify the obstacles, organizational and personal, that get in its way.

Is creativity really scarce?... See more

the accumulation of learning, an inevitable byproduct of the process of growing up, takes us not closer to but further away from our creative source

There is nothing weaker than a painting that tries too hard. Do what comes easily. When it stops being fun, you’re doomed. If a painting sucks, I quit.

I put everything down and I go take a walk, or go eat at a diner, or meet up with friends, or go to a movie or the Met—whatever. And I’ll know when it's time to go back to work. It will make itself... See more

Bob Dylan on the otherworldliness of creativity (2004) “I don’t know how I got to write those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written.” It is reminiscent of how mathematical discoveries tend to speak themselves—not to the experienced—but to the young. Show more