Developing Creativity

I was interested in the subject of creativity some years ago. Jehovah is the chief exemplar of creativity as evidenced by the cosmos. How can we also be creative in a productive way?

Psychologist Howard Gardner defines creativity as "divergent thinking." It is the ability to assimilate data and then create new possibilities from an acquired knowledge base. For example, a creative person may look at a book, and think of all the possible ways it could be used. It does not matter whether the ideas are "good" or practical: the creative thinker wisely diverges from common patterns of thought. Creativity involves brainstorming numerous ideas: the details are sorted out later.

I suggest three primary ways to develop creativity--neither idea is all that difficult or takes up much time.

How to Develop Creativity

1. Assimilate voluminous amounts of information. Read a variety of good literature (fiction and non-fiction); take music or art classes, and associate with creative persons. Stimulate your synaptic connections. Remember that the brain is a muscle: strengthen that muscle or it will atrophy. See http://www.livescience.com/4336-smart-strategy-brain-muscle.html

2. Use your mind to explore nontraditional ideas. Isaac Newton thought of F = G m1 m2/r2 (theory of gravitation) by simply using his mind, and he also developed integral calculus by mere thinking. Neither accomplishment was traditional.

3. Don't be afraid to wonder like a child. Einstein is a prime example of someone who never stopped asking childlike questions. He had a reputation for posing various thought-experiments (Gedanken in German) such as "What if lightning strikes simultaneously in the East and West at a train station. How would the lightning appear to an observer on a train headed west, an observer on a train headed east and to someone observing the phenomenon, who was waiting to board a train?" By means of these seemingly basic questions, Einstein creatively altered our understanding of the world.

Summary:
Thinking divergently is fun and beneficial. To be creative means that a person finds novel uses for old or familiar tools. We can be serious about creativity by using our minds, exploring nontraditional concepts and exercising childlike curiosity (Proverbs 14:6).

Sources:
De Bono, Edward. Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: BasicBooks, 1993.