Creativity

I even resisted sitting at a desk, so my studio mates rarely saw me, and most of my work was done in nature, underneath trees, by the water, and sometimes in cafés, galleries, and the botanical garden. And the rest was a vast, empty space that I didn’t know how to navigate any more than I knew how to start drawing from a blank piece of paper.

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

"Novelty emerges from an individual mind, when it is judged by a committee, orthodoxy will usually prevail."

Successful artists, musicians and other creatives have a similar dilemma. Their fans want more of what they did to reach their success. They want them to play their old songs, paint the same style paintings, and make the same kind of great movies. But in order to keep improving, to maintain their reputation as someone creative, the artists need to... See more