Thoughts about thinking, creativity, and humanity
Have you ever thought about the power of thinking? Oddly enough that topic of thinking can be very thought-provoking. When you start to think of new ideas, those thoughts can be a bridge to a new way of thinking. Do you consider yourself to be creative? How do you define creativity? Everyone thinks in different ways in relation to their lives, but the topic of creativity seems to have an unspoken agreed-upon definition. Unfortunately, that definition seems to suppress peoples’ creative efforts. Thinking is the backbone of creativity, and a lot of adults believe they aren’t creative. I respectfully call that a load of bullshit. If we could redefine creativity and empower people to embrace their child-like curiosity, we would feel more fulfilled and connected as humans.
Thinking is the act of using one’s mind to consider or reason about questions, situations, and problems. We use thinking every day to generate ideas, whether it’s what we’re making for supper or how we should have handled that argument two days ago. We typically rule out certain thoughts that may challenge personal experiences, beliefs, or predetermined assumptions. However, the rejection of even one thought can stop our brain from uncovering something new. In a sense, this is deliberately deciding to derail your train of thought.
Thinking, or more specifically how to think, isn’t typically taught in schools or explained in detail. Problem-solving is definitely discussed but doesn’t usually come with techniques or methods to be able to efficiently work through thoughts or even generate ideas for that matter. How are we supposed to think in a way that caters to creativity? A physician by the name of Dr. Edward de Bono developed methods that he calls lateral thinking. These methods help give individuals a path to start creating unique associations to break their natural thinking patterns. If we can view creativity as an associative way of thinking we can recognize where our personal “brain blinders” are. This is what thinking outside the box actually means. These “brain blinders” act as the box and if we can look past those we can emerge on the outside of them.
So where do these blinders come from and how can we recognize them? To help explain this, we need to understand how our minds developed from childhood.
Neurologists agree that the mind of a child allows room for curiosity, discovery, and creativity. These abilities are due to the neuroplasticity of a child’s mind. Neuro meaning nerve, or in this case, the nervous system of the brain, and plasticity meaning the adaptability and change throughout growth and recognition. Since the brain is young, it has an abundance of networks but it lacks neural pathways. As the child learns and grows, certain pathways are created and strengthened if they are used frequently enough. Once these pathways are made, they are difficult to circumvent or change. These pathways can be positive to us in the context of survival or negative to us in the context of creative thinking. At one point we found out that running our chubby little digits through fire was not pleasant, so our brain created a pathway that associated fire with our physical pain as a reminder not to do that again. In the context of creative thinking, we resort to only using the associations and pathways we have created throughout our lives and box in our thought process. This is why we as adults tend to stick with what we know. It is, literally, physically easier on our brains to use the neural pathways we have forged and established over time. So, you may be wondering can we as adults regain neuroplasticity to help strengthen our creative thinking capabilities? Short answer, in theory, yes. Long answer, you may want to get comfy…
When a person rejects that they are creative, it stems from not truly understanding what creativity is. We put blinders on ourselves with predetermined assumptions, and for some unspoken reason, many people boil creativity down to “Wow, look at their drawing. They are so creative, I can hardly draw a stick person.” Creativity doesn’t mean being good at arts and crafts. It’s defined as the use of imagination or original thoughts. Unfortunately, a vast number of people define creativity as to how well someone can draw a dog or how well a child can color within the lines. Creativity is wrapped around the act of thinking not the dexterity of an individual. Now, we start to recognize this ongoing obstacle of a misassociated understanding of creativity.
The way we can better our chances of regaining neuroplasticity and start making new associations and neural pathways is to put ourselves in our younger self’s shoes. We have to place ourselves in opportunities that welcome learning and encourage us to consider new ideas or reconsider old ones. Whether that is through reading a book of a different genre, learning a new skill, experiencing art, or talking with someone with contrasting thoughts. The more we place ourselves in those moments, the more we start to gain new ideas and perspectives. Our mental playground now has more than just a tire swing and a deflated basketball.
Once we start cultivating an environment for learning and new experiences, we can create unique associations with topics that aren’t necessarily grouped together. This allows us to start making new pathways that could potentially lead to new ideas and discoveries.
Creativity belongs within our families, communities, teams, organizations, and our lives. Don’t accept the misassociated definition. Step out of your comfort zone and discover what creativity means to you. Also promise to never be the person who shuts down someone else’s curious endeavors, whether they are a child or an adult. Provide yourself and others the encouragement we all need to keep learning about new things that interest us. Let creativity be the gateway to uncovering your true potential and happiness. Creativity can be the bridge that helps us find commonality with what may seem to be opposing forces.
I want you to imagine a world where people encourage each other to stay curious and explore ideas rather than telling them to stop or that it’s not worth their time. Imagine a world where we value mental endurance and performance just as much as we value physical endurance and performance. People would forge unique and new pathways within their minds. Imagine the new inventions and discoveries that would follow. Keep thinking, keep learning, keep making, keep chasing, and keep being.
Redefine your creativity by daydreaming often, meeting someone who’s different from you, and protecting the curious minds of our children and one another.
