how can I generate creativity?

A big part of passive learning is going out of your way to read and learn from the widest variety of topics you can, intentionally looking for similarities between different fields. When you do, you’ll be stunned at how easy and fun it is to stumble on a new idea that teaches you how the world works.

For instance, Tschaikovsky wrote, “The germ of a future composition comes suddenly and unexpectedly. If the soil is ready . . .” And Mary Shelley: “Invention does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” And Stephen Spender: “There is nothing we imagine which we do not already know. And our ability to imagine is our ability to rememb... See more

For him [Feynman] satisfaction in discovery was there even if what you discover was already known by others. It was there even if all you are doing is re-deriving someone else’s result your own way. And it was there even if your creativity is in playing with your child. It was self-satisfaction. Feynman’s focus was internal, and his internal focus ... See more