Creativity
THE NATURE OF INVENTIVE INTELLIGENCE
“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Creativity is a bizarre, often misunderstood concept. It is typically classified as a sort of mystical enemy to the relatively boring world of logic in the epic battle between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. In reality, though, creativity is more of a friend to logic. In fact, you could say the two have a rather codependent relationship. Creativity allows us to come up with new ideas and make connections between preexisting ones. Logic guides the process and directs it toward fruitful ends.
Although it’s commonly associated with art, creativity is involved in every type of thought, whenever we think in an innovative way. In art, though, there is another, more enigmatic aspect of creativity that can yield some truly wondrous results—imagination. Our minds have the marvelous ability to experience ethereal, fabricated sensations of things that aren’t really there.
Essential to both the creation and experience of art, imagination takes us temporarily out of our immediate surroundings and into a shadowy realm of alternate realities. While visiting these other worlds, we gain new experiences that become assimilated into our conceptual network. In this way, our creative connections grow exponentially, weaving between worlds of reality and illusion. In art, creativity and imagination are free to run wild and reach their full potential. —CKG
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
• Where do the invaluable mental powers of creativity and imagination come from? The mind? The brain? Evolution? God?
• How is imagination involved in experiences of art?