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Feb 14, 2007

"Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself." --Alan Alda

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind

Where do creative people get their inspiration? Guy Claxton, author of "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind" has a theory: according to him it comes from a combination of inspiration and evaluation, "of being able to let an idea come to you and then crafting it into shape." Claxton talks of the intuitive understanding creative people have, of the importance of alternating work rhythms with reverie, of knowing in his words, "when to get down to hard work and when to put a problem on the back burner and leave the subconscious to mull it over." Says Claxton, in this thought-provoking article, "Time out feeds the quietness of mind that is essential to creativity."