On the subject of where creativity comes from, Charles Wakefield, in
'Predator of the Universe: the Human Mind', writes that there are a series of
five mental stages that identifies the creative act:
First is an awareness of the proble,
Second comes a defining of the problem
Third comes a saturation in the problem and the factual data surrounding it
Fourth comes the period of incubation and surface calm
Fifth comes the explosion--the mental insight, the sudden leap beyond logic,
beyond the usual stepping-stones to normal solutions.
Even though some writers generally agree on the steps you must take to gety a
creative idea, none of them talk too much about the condition you must be in
to climb these steps. And if you are not in condition to climb, it doesn't
make any difference if you know the steps for you'll never achieve the
creativity that you are capable of getting.
As Mark Twain once said: "I was gratified to be able to answer propmtly, and
I did. I said I didn't know."
Frank Voehl (FVoehl@aol.com)
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>