Getting Cosy with Creativity – with Aran Rees

steppingstones

Today’s post is very short. That’s because I want you to spend less time reading and more time reflecting on what you’ve read. For the reading allow about 60 seconds. A good rule of thumb is to spend ten times that long, ten minutes in this case, reflecting.

Last week I shared some thoughts on the danger of Maslow’s Hammer; the tendency for the tools we use to narrow our perspective and leave us blinkered, rigid, and predictable.

This brings us to the single hardest problem for creativity:

  • We use tools to help us express creativity
  • Over time we get better at using the tools
  • The better we get the more we rely on the tools
  • The more we rely on the tools, the worse we get at expressing creativity

I see creativity as a relationship, a way of existing in the world

In my view, it’s wrong to think of creativity as a set of skills or tools. I see creativity as a relationship, a way of existing in the world. People who have a strong relationship with creativity are somewhat like children, driven by curiosity, open to change; keeping a beginners mind, ready to receive. Tools can help us to achieve this relationship but they aren’t a substitute for it.

Where last week I shared the intellectual basis for this argument, this week I want to share with you a meditation that I find helps me both to understand this idea more deeply and to communicate it more clearly; I call it ‘Stepping Stones’.

[clickToTweet tweet=”The more we rely on the tools, the worse we get at expressing creativity” quote=”The more we rely on the tools, the worse we get at expressing creativity”]

Stepping Stones

If we want to get to the other side of a deep, fast flowing river, it would be very risky to try to swim unaided! Instead, we look for stepping stones leading to the other side.

With each stone, we come closer to where we’re going. The stones feel solid and safe but the river is rushing past and, with each moment, a stone might slip and we might fall in!

It’s wise to use the stones but it’s foolish to stand on them for too long. Remember our confidence will only grow until the moment we fall.

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Getting Cosy with Creativity – with Aran Rees Today's post is very short. That's because I want you to spend less time reading and more time reflecting on what you've read. For the reading allow about 60 seconds. A good rule of thumb is to spend ten times that long,...
Aran Rees
Founder and Coach at Sabre Tooth Panda
Aran is a creativity coach, facilitator and communicator, founder of Sabre Tooth Panda and creator of No Wrong Answers: the hypothetical quiz. He believes that expressing creativity is all about how you and those around you relate to creativity both at an emotional and intellectual level. He helps his clients to get cosy with creativity to solve big problems and have more fun.