Wily Walnut's Blog

Apple core creativity

2008-02-04T10:47:00.000Z

How is creativity like this big juicy apple that I am just about to eat?

I can't swallow it whole. Most projects are too big to do all at once.

To eat it, I've just got to get stuck in. Take a big ol' bite!

Chew that up! Enjoy the flavours. Relish the juice.

Then take another bite.

And another. And another.

Pretty soon, it's almost all gone. I've got to the core of the project.

And, what's this?

Seeds!

Seeds are new ideas for new projects.

You don't know about them until you've eaten a good chunk of the way into the creative project you are working on now.

From seeds you can grow trees, that will spawn even more apples.

That's the way of creative endeavour.

Start where you are. Take it one bite at a time. Enjoy the experience of chewing it up. Look for the seeds of other ideas that can come from what you are doing now. Empires are born this way.

Tip of the mental iceberg

2008-01-31T19:48:00.001Z

The conscious mind is such a tiny part of our whole mental capacity.

It's the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Thinking, thought, comes out of your subconscious mind from the unconscious mind.

My latest appreciation of what those two words mean is this...

Unconscious mind means you are completely unconscious and unware of what is going on in there to the point of denying it with all your breath.

Subconscious mind, on the other hand, you can get inklings of. It's like peripheral vision; if you soften and increase your awareness, you can become aware of the things going on to the sides of your focus... without turning your conscious mind (the torch) fully on them.

It's a bridge to and from the unconscious mind.

Conscious mind is a narrow tube. The subconscious info squirts through that narrow tube of conscious awareness.

To become a genius, to think like a genius, you have to expand that tube so you can get more information and data through from the subconscious mind. You need to find ways to expand your awareness of the subconscious data feed.

That's what The Complete Guide To Genius trains you to do.

David Deida's Instant Enlightenment

2008-01-29T13:21:00.000Z

I am currently (as in right now -- I've just put the book down) reading David Deida's new book, 'Instant Enlightenment'.

David Deida is a master of using juxtapositions to free up trapped energy and experience expanded states of consciousness.

That's why I am recommending you take a look at his work.

He will blast you out of your 'stuck' points. If you let him.

He will free you from your righteousness.

From the creative thinker perspective, this is priceless. His brief essays in 'Instant Enlightenment' crow bar your mind open.

I wrote an article some years ago called... wait for it... "Dirty, filthy, wash-your-mouth-out, gut-wrenching ways to make your brain sing with the sweetest language that will blow the socks off your friends, family, co-workers and all those you need to impress! I swear..."

(Yes, yes, I know, a little understated. But I'm a shy, demure kind of guy like that.)

Anyway, David Deida has a neat little exercise in 'Instant Enlightenment' in the chapter labelled, SWEAR.

The idea is to think of the dirtiest, filthiest word you know. And then say it out loud, when you are alone.

You repeat this vile word several times.

And then you say, "I love you," while imagining that you are with someone you really love.

The exercise is then to alternate between saying your dirty word and saying "I love you" until you can say the swear word with as much love as you say "I love you."

You then escalate the exercise with a (willing) friend or lover, repeating the bad word and "I love you" to them until they can feel as much love in the swear word as in the actual saying that you love them.

Deida advises that you rinse and repeat this exercise with other swear words.

The ultimate aim being to "practice saying every word that you utter, from now on until you die, in a way that feels like 'I love you' to whoever hears it."

Isn't that great? I love that idea!

Oh and for all you cheeseballs who think that sounds too shmaltzy, there's a chapter on Hate just for you! ;-)

Scott Berkun's Creative Thinking Hacks

2008-01-26T13:56:00.000Z

I like Scott Berkun's essay Creative Thinking Hacks. Scott is a public speaker, consultant and author of 'The Myth of Innovation'. He also teaches creative thinking at the University of Washington so he knows his stuff, writes eloquently and is worth listening to.

Take aways from the essay:

1. Scott's emphasis on debunking the myths and glamors surrounding creative thinking and stressing that "an idea is a combination of other ideas." ie. Keep it simple, keep it in reach.

2. This quote:

"All great creative ideas, inventions, and theories are comprised of other ideas. Why should you care? Here’s why: if you want to be a creator instead of a mere consumer you must see ideas currently in the world as fuel for your mind. You must stop seeing them as objects or functional things: they are combinations of ingredients waiting for reuse."

3. Solution to feeling uncreative: expand your awareness of the combinations available to you.

4. Creative masters develop "reusable combinations, or patterns, that can be used again and again to develop new ideas or modify old ones. "

5. Developing fearlessness with regard to creative thinking: "Being creative has more to do with being fearless than intelligent, brilliant or any other adjective superficially associated with creativity."

6. The importance of self-knowledge in the creative process.

7. Persistence: being there at 9AM ready to work regardless of whether you feel inspired. Creating inspiration through action, through DOING IT!

Check it out here:
http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/56-creative-thinking-hacks/

Initial impressions on MegaGenius Formula

2008-01-14T10:56:00.000Z

I recently ordered The Genius Formula Series from Mega-Genius (aka Jim Diamond, 'the man with the perfect IQ').

This is a 6-CD set of lectures from the man who is said to have the highest IQ ever.

(Marilyn vos Savant's biographical information seems to claim the same thing but we'll leave them to slug it out.)

I was immediately impressed by the customer service (I got a long personal email from Carol, Mega-Genius' administrative assistant, telling me about my order and when it would arrive, and prompt responses when I replied to her). When I thanked them for the excellent service, I was told:

"Thank you for your kind words about our customer service.I wish that I could
take all the credit, but I am afraid that it is a case of all the
employees at this Company having been taught by Mega Genius® that
customer service is just a matter of caring. He has drilled into us
that any person is only as valuable as he/she can help others."

Now, I liked that. That sounded really SMART to me.

What else impressed me? The price. I'm used to Nightingale-Conant prices where a program starts about £69.95 (UK prices -- that's about $137 today.) Or the various online self-development CD packages that can be anywhere from $99-to-$1000 or more.

The Genius Formula lectures cost me $35.95 including shipping from USA to the UK, which I thought was a great price for 6 CDs of lectures. Okay, I guess that value has to be rated on content. I've only listened to one so far. I think I've got my money's worth. I'll report later on what's on the lecture series.

I tell you what though. He sounds like the real deal to me.

A technique for producing ideas -- book review

2008-01-08T16:24:00.000Z

Just to let you know of a book review that I've just uploaded on the creative thinking classic by James Webb Young called, "A Technique For Producing Ideas."

-----------------------------------------------------

'A Technique For Producing Ideas' by James Webb Young is a classic little book on creative thinking.

I got my copy a couple of weeks ago and have just sat down and read right through it. Here is my review:

At only 48 pages long, 'A Technique For Producing Ideas' is a slim volume. However it is written with the clarity of a skilled advertising man. James Webb Young first published this book in the 1940s and it is now reprinted as a McGraw Hill Advertising Classic.

The back cover subtitle reveals it to be 'A Step-By-Step Technique For Sparking Creativity In Advertising or Any Field.'

Note the emphasis on ANY field.

You can read the rest of the review and get details of the technique here or at:

http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/A-Technique-For-Producing-Ideas.html

Creative Renewal: Emptying your mind for creative renewal

2008-01-07T21:10:00.000Z

Here's a new article I've just written on creative renewal. Seems appropriate for this time of year:

------------------------------------------------------

CREATIVE RENEWAL: Emptying your mind for creative renewal

How to get over a creatively DRY period and refresh your mind

Creative renewal is such an important part of the creative process. Every mind goes stale after a while. You need to empty your cup. Go on, chuck out the dregs of the previous 12 months. Empty yourself. Become new again.

Why is creative renewal important?
We run on energy. Bursts of inspiration and enthusiasm take us only so far. Towards the end we are running out of steam. Scratching the leavings from the bottom of the bowl. We start to fade, becoming insipid and uninspired. Our work lacks light. There is no 'joie de vivre', no spark. What can we do? How can we get our freshness back? How can we revitalize our thinking? The only way is through creative renewal. We must renew ourselves, shedding the old skins and growing into a new form... kinda like Madonna! She must be thousand years old by now, and she just keeps re-inventing herself. More power to her, I say!

Continue reading article on Creative Renewal here.

Boost Your IQ with the Complete Guide To Genius

2007-12-10T14:02:00.000Z

I just bought 'The Complete Guide to Genius' for $67. It's only just appeared on my radar and I think it's new.

On the sales page it claimed to be "A Simple, Step-by-Step Guide Of How You Can Increase Your Intelligence And Become A GENIUS Using A Simple Technique!"

The letter was good so I thought I'd check it out and see what I could learn.

There are several bonuses but the main guide is just 38 pages long.

So what do I think of it?

I think it's brilliant.

I zipped through it and was really impressed by the training program that the author has put together, and the authority with which he or she writes.

The focus of the book uses Win Wenger's Imagestreaming process, but there are other techniques for boosting IQ that I haven't heard of before.

The author believes that you can boost your IQ and achieve an IQ in the range of 180 to 200. That's an extraordinary claim.

How long will it take?

Well, that depends on what your IQ is now. If you are around 100 IQ it's going to take longer than if you are around 130 IQ.

Nonetheless, the author says that if you follow the program that he has laid out (involving about an hour and a half of mental exercises a day) pretty much anyone could achieve a genius IQ within a year.

If you are already fairly bright with an IQ around 120, then it could be as little as a few months to get to 170+ (genius level).

Here is a rough guide that the ebook gives to IQ levels:

Mentally handicapped individual 70 -
High school pupil/Minimum wage worker 80 -
Degree student/Decorator/High street worker/Joiner 90-110
Masters student/Manager/Journalist/Accountant/Professional 120+
PhD student/Ivy league or Russel group student/Chief Executive 130+
University professor/Top government official/Gifted individual 140+
Nobel Laureate/ Chess Grandmaster/World Debating Champion 150+
Rhodes Scholar/Army General 160+
Genius 170+

I think it's a good idea to take an online IQ test (or several) so that you get an idea of where your own IQ is.

Then, do the program and retest when you feel that you have achieved the level of genius.

It's a fairly big commitment for most people. Devoting an hour and a half a day to these mental exercises will take tremendous self-discipline. Are you up to it?

What I like about this guide is that the writer has actually created a schedule of exercise and claims that it has been proven to work to boost IQ to levels of 196+. I'm pretty sceptical of big claims but I like the way the author writes and the intelligence of his arguments.

I'll be sure to report back on this as I put it to the test.

I feel strongly that I should recommend this guide to you:

http://www.genius-intelligence.com

101 Ways to Brew Up A Great Idea

2007-11-12T15:46:00.000Z

I like this list of activities for getting into a creative mind state. Reminds you that sometimes the best ideas come when you...

1. Change state.
2. Do activities that let you relax and go into creative reverie.
3. Take an alternative perspective.
4. Have fun.
5. Stop trying so hard.

Source: 101 Ways to Brew Up A Great Idea

Free online mind-mapping service

2007-11-05T10:07:00.000Z

Someone gave me a heads-up on this free online mind-mapping service. If you like mind-mapping and thinking in visual ways, then you're gonna love it. You can start mind-mapping right away, without registering. If you want to save your mind-map, or share your mind-map with others you have to register a free account. It's all free and there is nothing you need to buy -- the website seems to fund itself by showing google adsense ads. It's pretty cool way to start mind mapping. I think I still prefer paper and pen for ease and convenience, but there are lots of people who want to do everything on computer and/or be able to share it with others. Many of my mind maps are so messy that I wouldn't want to to show it to anyone other than my priest in confession -- and hey, I'm not even Catholic!

Oh, yeah, here's the URL for this free online mind-mapping service: http://www.bubbl.us

Whoozy Brain Optical Illusion

2007-11-02T13:53:00.000Z

Woah, I feel like Otto the bus driver from The Simpsons!

I've just been playing the distortion illusion movie half way down this wiki entry on optical illusions.

Check it out. Watch it for a couple of minutes and then look away.

It's so weird! Like you are on drugs or something!

Dancing Lady Mind Warp

2007-11-02T13:13:00.000Z

Hey, Dr Mercola sent me this Right Brainer - Left Brainer test this morning.

Which way is the dancing lady rotating?

If she she is rotating clockwise, it means you are using your right brain more. If you see her rotating anti-clockwise, it means you are using your left brain more.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

How I did...

When I first looked at this, the lady was rotating clockwise indicating right brain activity. I wondered how it worked and what the idea behind it was. The lady was now rotating the other way, anti-clockwise indicating left brain activity ... or dominance. I kept staring at it trying to see if it was a trick and the picture was on a loop, where it would change after so many rotations. But that didn't happen. I couldn't see how it could be an optical illusion. It just seemed so real when she was rotating one way or another.

'Controlling' the direction she rotates with your mind

Having failed to figure it out, I left it for ten minutes, then went back to see if she was rotating a different way. Nope. Still going anti-clockwise. I tried doing things that I thought might put me in a more right brain state again -- like imagining myself rotating as the lady, or visualising something, or going into alpha mind state. That didn't do anything. And then she switched. And then before I knew it she had switched again. Back to anti-clockwise. Darn it!

I've now figured out how to get her to change direction at will. The key for me is to look at her standing foot and just try and see it rotating the other way... and that seems to be enough to see her whole body rotate the other way. It's an odd sensation. Try it yourself and see how you get on. Some people will just get it straight away and think no big deal. Others will find this very exasperating. It's a bit like when you first look at those autostereograms where you have to hold the page at funny angle and try and squint to see the hidden image. When it pops up for you it's a real revelation. Same thing here. When you can rotate the lady at will, you'll get buzzed (kind of sad I know but hey you gotta take your triumphs where you can find them!).

PS. Having written this blog, I went back for another look and she was stubbornly going one way again. Typical! Just when you think you've got a woman figured out she goes and changes! :-))

I found tilting my head from side to side helped to get 'her' to change direction.

Original Source: Left brain versus Right brain

MindGym offers memory and learning tips

2007-10-18T16:29:00.000+01:00

I stumbledupon earlier upon this BBC/Open University 'flash' site Mind Gym.

If you need to improve your memory, you'll find Mind Gym's simple tips and tests laid out in a really effective way.

Take a look...

Coping with cognitive dissonance

2007-09-12T10:34:00.000+01:00

What is cognitive dissonance, and how do you learn to deal with it?

Cognitive dissonance is the internal state of conflict (disturbance) that arises when two opposing paradigms or beliefs collide in your consciousness.

Example of cognitive dissonance: Religion versus Science
You've been brought up in a particular religion and hold the notion of a personal God. You've become a 'seeker' and have explored other spiritual traditions, philosophies and ideas. You've broadened your concept of God but still retain some sense of God focused into a loving source that gives you personal comfort and hope.

But you are a seeker, you want 'the Truth', you want the real. So you are always exploring. And that exploration includes examining science and in doing so, you recognise that the majority of scientists are atheists, and that they have very different explanations and ideas about the creation of the Universe than your religion does.

In all honesty, you have to agree with the evidence of the scientists. You start to see how people habitually fill in the gaps in their knowledge with fable and fantasy. The ancients who wrote the various bibles of the world religions, knew nothing about electricity, about how weather is really created, and all the vast knowledge that we have today. They were so ignorant.

And so you start to examine your idea of God. You can see and sense how your 'need' for God is largely based on fear. You are frightened of being alone, frightened of meaninglessness, frightened of the apparent sterility of a world with no 'Godness' in it.

Now you have cognitive dissonance.

On the one hand, you have the need for God in your life and the comfort you derive from it, the sense of unfailing love and sweetness. On the other hand, you perceive the reality of facts -- and the genuine illumination of knowledge. Your desire for sweetness and comfort fights with your desire for the Truth and what is real. The two paradigms slug it out, fighting for dominance in your consciousness. It's a meme battle. And you are disturbed.

How do you cope with cognitive dissonance without retreating from it? The temptation is always to disgard the new knowledge, the new paradigm, and retreat to the familliarity of the old paradigm. But that is not progressive -- and sickens you at some level of your soul. The real never needs to be entrenched. It reveals itself for what it is.
There is no denying the level of inner discomfort that you get from cognitive dissonance. My personal formula for dealing with it is: time + awareness + persistence.

The longer you dwell with it the more used to it you become.

The more awareness you bring to it, the more you can see it for what it is... programs fighting to use the hardware of your brain.

The longer you stick in there, the more you will learn about yourself and your reality.

For increasing awareness, I recommend you sit down for ten minutes in the morning, and just become aware. Breathe in and out, and think... 'I am breathing in and I am breathing out.' Observe and note what you are observing and doing. 'I am aware that I am thinking about breakfast'...'I am aware of the sound of the hot water pipes' ... 'I am aware of the tension in my jaw'... and so on.

You can adapt this and continue it at odd moments through the day. As you do or notice something, just think to yourself... 'I am picking up the cup'...'I am writing on the paper'...'I see the bird flying across the sky' and so on.

You can apply this to your cognitive dissonance too: 'I am aware that I am feeling afraid right now' ... 'I am aware of the pull to retreat back to the comfortable old belief' ... 'I am aware that its normal for someone with this belief to feel challenged by this new knowledge'.

Leonardo da Vinci advised people who want to be more creative to embrace paradox (see Da Vinci Brain Bomb Number 4). Paradox occurs when you find yourself straddling two or more paradigms. Paradox is the old fashioned name for the confusion that we now label cognitive dissonance.

Horizontal thinking versus vertical thinking

2007-07-31T20:45:00.000+01:00

I find myself to be big picture orientated. That means I'm not big on specifics. Perhaps that is why I am so easily mesmerised by those who pour great energy into clarifying their visions, adding detail and layers of understanding.

J.K. Rowling had worked out the main sequence of events that Harry Potter would go through before she started writing her first books. She had invented her world, developed detailed histories of her characters, stuff that would never enter her books but would enable her to write with the authority of knowledge.

The 'super successful' people that I've met in life seem to have a much easier time of drawing the distinction between what is real and what is not. Is that because they have got very clear, specific ideas about what they want from life? Do they have enough detail to draw the distinction between real and unreal?

And are people who have fuzzy unclear goals and purposes more susceptible to the stronger, powerful, detail-rich intentions of the successful?

I blogged recently about creative generalists and how they skim the surface of ideas looking for patterns and connections.

Creative generalists don't go deep into detail.

Now I'm wondering whether this horizontal style of thinking leads to a similar horizontal kind of imagination?

Horizontal thinking is shallow, surface thinking that links ideas and makes new connections.

Vertical thinking focuses on a specific area, and goes deep. It is purpose driven.

Horizontal imagination is unfocused and random, like daydreaming or fantasy. It is uncontrolled and lacks detail. Specifics are overlooked in favour of the gestalt.

Vertical imagination is focused and detail driven. It is creativity with a specific purpose in mind.

Horizontal imagination is thin and tenuous -- you'd better write your ideas down quick or they'll be lost forever.

Vertical thinking is deep and rich with texture and details. It's hard to forget with all that detail.

Horizontal thinking is easier to puncture and knock off course than vertical thinking. Horizontal thinkers are more easily overwhelmed, distracted and hypnotized by a strong vertical thinker's vision. But vertical thinkers are often hypnotized too by the depth of their obsession and focus.

What is 'real'?

2007-07-30T20:36:00.000+01:00

What is 'real'? When I read an engaging story, my heart beats faster, and my attention is gripped. I might read to the end of the chapter and look up and 'emerge' from that experience into what we call the real world. And it's like 'coming to' after being asleep or unconscious. You remember, "oh yeah, this is what's real..." and somewhere feel a sense of disappointment that what seemed so real in the story is not.

Let's take the Harry Potter books, for example. J.K. Rowling has done such a terrific job of creating a rich magical world populated by amazing characters. Her writing style and story telling abilities make it easy to picture this world and empathize with the characters. We are sucked in from the very first page. And we soon experience that dichotomy of feeling between the real world and the very real experience we've had reading the book. The stories are so compelling that we want them to be real, we feel that somewhere, somehow they should be real.

I remember reading a book by a theosophist that suggested that popular fictional characters take on a life of their own, as thought forms, on the astral or mental plane. With so many people reading the Harry Potter books, all that thought energy, all that imagination power, crystalises the characters... somewhere, somehow... if only into the collective unconscious... the universally shared mind.

With the books being made into movies, the characters are objectified onto digital film. We now read the books and tend to see Harry Potter as the version played by Daniel Radcliffe in the movies. Same with the other characters. Maggie Smith's portrayal IS Professor Mcgonagall. Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid IS Hagrid.

When does something become real? What is the difference between something we decide is real and something we deem to be imaginary? It's often said in the personal development movement that the mind cannot tell the difference between the real and the vividly imagined. If you agree with that, I'd like to swap your real $100 for my five imaginary $20s!

There is a difference between real and imagined. Of course there is. Otherwise nobody would bother doing anything. We'd just sit around and be happy with our fantasies and imaginations. Most people have had at least one fantasy relationship, if not recently then in their youth. It's an entertaining distraction. But it's nothing like the real thing. Simulation is always a secondary experience, however good you are at visualisation.

Real, for me, is something that does not need the investment of my conscious mental energy to exist. This is interesting to consider in the context of creativity. When you come up with an idea, you usually start with a blank canvas. This is like the primordial state. And you have to invest mental energy, you have to have a thought.

In the beginning was the Word.

Our imaginations bring something forth that wasn't there before. The more detail we give to the thing we are imagining, the more real it seems to become.

J.K. Rowling's books are extraordinarily rich with interesting details that bring her wizard world and its inhabitants to life. Your own ideas become more vivid and real the more you think about them and work out the particulars.

If you take your detailed imaginings to the ultimate, you start to externalise and build the thing into reality. It has so much detail that it has become form. In 'realising' it, by adding more and more layers of detail and knowledge about it, it becomes part of reality, it becomes real.

I'm not satisfied by this answer. Have you got a better one?

Mourning Harry Potter

2007-07-29T19:36:00.000+01:00

I closed the last page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows earlier today. And like countless others who have finished the book, I am in that strange kind of mourning for the characters. I started it a day or so ago, and read it in three gulps. It had sat in our house for a week, as I was reluctant to begin it, knowing that after this one, there would be no more.

I also finished off the latest and chronologically last of Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori books earlier this week. And experienced a similar sense of sadness.

Reflecting on this, I am struck with many questions.

How do authors manage to conjour these worlds and characters and make them so believable? How do we the reader read the words on a page and project and 'see' the story as if it were real? How do we get so tied up emotionally with the lives of the characters? How come we end up thinking of Harry, Ron and Hermione and all their pals as part of our own experience? As closer than close friends?

I can remember reading books as a kid and having a crush on a certain female character. How bizarre is that! Having feelings for someone who doesn't exist outside of words on a page and my own interpretation of them.

I can remember feeling heartbroken when a book series came to an end and there would be no ongoing relationship with the central character.

And all this from words on a page.

How powerful our imaginations are!

Who's driving the bus?

2007-07-25T12:10:00.000+01:00

Who's driving the bus?

I'm intrigued as to who is really driving the bus. Is it your conscious mind or your unconscious mind?

We like to think it's our conscious mind. The ego likes to feel that it's in charge. It feels safer and more important that way.

Brain research shows that thoughts, even those conscious deliberate thoughts, register in the brain sometime BEFORE you are conscious of thinking them. Meaning they are coming from non-conscious parts of your mind. Those researchers suggest that free will may in fact be limited in choice to just resistance to ideas that surface.

By naming different aspects of mind, we create a sense of separate parts of the mind competing against each other. So we have this idea of conscious mind, which we think of as 'me'. Then we have the subconscious mind -- which we kind of think of as a bridging state between consciousness and non-consciousness. And then we have the unconscious mind -- which takes care of all the involuntary physical stuff like making your eyebrows grow into shaggy caterpillars.

But those are just names. The fact is it's all just one mind. So let's own it. When you do that, something magic happens. You get to feel whole again. You get to feel connected. You feel bigger and more powerful.

You are more than just your personality, ego, conscious thought process. You have hidden depths.

When you accept that you are all of this mind, you give up the conflict. You learn to trust in the non-conscious. If it can take care of your beating heart, growing new cells, repairing damage, repelling invasive germs or viruses, maybe it can be trusted to take care of you in other ways?

Famed master of hypnosis, Dr Milton Erickson, trusted his unconscious mind implicitly. When faced with challenges, he would hand over the reins to the unconscious mind. He would put himself into a relaxing trance and trust the resourcefulness of his unconscious mind.

He would 'come to' later with the complex report written or the audience applauding the spontaneous speech he'd been asked to deliver at short notice.

So many spiritual traditions lay out a path that aims first for co-creation and ultimately for Thy Will Be Done. Whether it's submitting to God's plan or flowing with the Tao, there is a resonance with the idea of trusting this non-conscious mind of yours that is ultimately the one driving the bus.

Infomaniacs: content or relationship?

2007-07-24T13:26:00.000+01:00

Are you interested in the content of an idea... or its relationship to other ideas?

The previous post was on how exhausting it can be exploring the plethora of ideas in our world. It is really the compulsion or addiction to knowing MORE ideas. It's been called info-lust... and so many of us have become 'infomaniacs'!

The infomaniac is driven to know more, find out more. Infomaniacs fret and worry that they are missing out if they don't know about something. Hint at a secret and you have them salivating. Would "The Secret" book and DVD have been so phenomenally successful had it been called something generic and bland like "The Way To Success"?

No! It's the idea of 'the secret' that overrides our scepticism and drives us to find out if there really is a secret that we don't know about. We can't afford NOT to know. So we buy into it.

I suddenly realised that my own infomaniac tendencies were less driven by knowing the specific content of ideas than by the relationships and connections that can be seen or formed between all these different ideas. Sure some ideas are like juicy bones and, doglike, I want to chew on them and suck out every last drop of the marrow. But I'm more excited by knowing the connections between ideas. I like seeing the big picture patterns that emerge when you 'join the dots' between ideas.

What about you? What kind of infomaniac are you? Are you all about the content of ideas or the way they connect?

Exhausted by ideas?

2007-07-24T12:48:00.000+01:00

Do you get exhausted by the sheer volume of ideas out there for you to explore?

I know I do. Sometimes being an explorer of ideas is as shattering as exploring the jungle!

Exploring ideas is addictive too. Part of you has to 'know'. It drives you on.

But that all-consuming passion for knowledge, innovation, and the electrifying buzz of a new idea can make your exploration of ideas so shallow and fleeting. You rush from idea to idea to idea. At the end of the day you can feel so tired. The very sight of your bulging bookshelves exacerbates the feeling. The thought of your computer and the internet can make you feel almost sick. It represents all those ideas. All the ideas you've covered. And all those ideas you know nothing about. There's so much!

This rapid, shallow exploration... skimming over the surface of ideas... worried me until I read about about the Creative Generalist. That gives it a context and a purpose that I had lost sight of. We talk about 'surfing' the internet, and that is such a great metaphor for this exploration of ideas.

I recently started using Stumbleupon. You open an account, let them know your preferences, install the tool bar on your browser and hit the Stumble button when you want to start 'stumbling'. You are then taken to websites related to your preferences. I put down self development and psychology under my preferences. Everytime I hit the Stumble button they deliver me to a new website related to either psychology or personal development. You can give the site a thumbs up or a thumbs down according to whether you like it or don't like it. And that enables Stumbleupon to refine the process of delivering sites you will probably like.

I find myself hitting the button and visiting 10 different sites in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes. I've discovered some very interesting blogs and web resources. Many put me to shame. :-)

But that process of butterfly hopping from site to site is quite appealing, and good fun when you have nothing better to do. It's a little too randomly general though as you are not really following up your own idea trails. Usually when you are surfing you land on a site, then you see a link to something else and follow that up, that in turn leads you somewhere else. That is quite an organic way of thinking like a Creative Generalist.

Stumbleupon though delivers you to places that you have no real clue as to where you are going other than the general theme. This is great when it takes you to places that you know you would probably not have found otherwise. And possibly that can lead to some real 'out of the blue' insights and combinations of ideas.

But what of that exhaustion that occurs? The sheer overwhelm of information and possibilities?

I think the only thing you can do is try to recognise and manage your limits. I wrote about the Multiple Paradigm Tolerance Factor... and that mainly involved having an awareness of the mental stress that can occur from exploring multiple paradigms. Idea exhaustion is similar but more about stress from burn out than identity crisis.

So you just have to figure out what your threshold is and try and stay within your energy levels. Try and get away from the obsession later in the day when your energy is less. Do your exploring in the morning when you are fresh. Or whatever works best for you.

If you create limits for yourself, you will have structure that will support you and lessen the likelihood of you being overwhelmed by the volume of ideas you cover. Build in suitable rest time and 'real life' time with your friends and family being normal. You'll be a better idea surfer then.

Generalist: What role has the creative generalist?

2007-07-23T13:52:00.000+01:00

What role has the creative generalist?

Exploring ideas, beliefs and paradigms, you become a generalist.

But what role has the generalist in the increasingly niche-ified modern society, if he/she never commits to any one idea, I wondered?

Fortunately, Steve Hardy has answered this better than I could have done.

See his blog: The Creative Generalist.

But first read his brilliant 18-page manifesto: The Creative Generalist: How Broad Thinking Leads To Big Ideas

How to explore a paradigm without getting trapped by it

2007-07-22T14:24:00.000+01:00

If paradigm shifting is seen to be a beneficial exercise for those who wish to evolve and be more creative, how do you do it safely? How can you explore new paradigms without getting trapped within them? Obviously if you are 100% committed to a paradigm, then you are unwilling to entertain anything outside of that paradigm. You are going to argue for the inside of the box. None of your thinking will be outside of the box.

There is plenty of room within most paradigms for profitable creative thinking. In fact, all profitable thinking occurs within somebody’s box or paradigm. Creative thinking that occurs outside of the box, outside of the current paradigm is usually too revolutionary to make money from – at least in the beginning.

First is rarely first when it comes to making money from a new idea.

Nevertheless, if you are passionate about new discoveries, innovation and enlightenment, you will want to push and stretch the envelope. You will feel an inner compulsion to break out of the box and enter the chaos zone the other side. In that realm, which Deepak Chopra refers to as the ‘field of all possibilities’, you will get whipped into confusion but may emerge with a brand new insight, understanding or concept that will revolutionize your own paradigm… and maybe the world’s too.

The 3 Anchors For Safe Paradigm Exploration
You want to explore other paradigms. Stretching your mind to different parameters seems like a good idea. You expect it to open you up and make you a more creative person. It might even give you that mercurial brain you want. But you are hesitant. You know how sticky belief systems can be. Once you are in it, it’s hard to get out again. But here are 3 anchors you can use, so you can explore and remain free.

1. Define who you are.
Define who you are currently. Denis Waitley remarks that if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. So define your current paradigm. List your values. List your strengths and weaknesses. Outline your current world view. People define themselves by the beliefs and paradigms they hold dear. You fear that you will lose yourself by exploring other paradigms, so this little exercise will act as a reminder of who you are. Just in case you get a lost along the way.

2. Create your best working paradigm.
In defining who you are, you should polish up your understanding of your current paradigm and give yourself the best working version that you can… for the purpose at hand. You are going exploring. So you want a paradigm in which you are ‘bigger’ than all that you will be exploring. You can twist that whichever way you want. But you need to have some way of maintaining the observer or witness role. Yours must be the big picture universal position – if you want to ensure that you don’t get lost in your explorations.

3. Carry your zero-the-hero explorer’s toolbox.
Indiana Jones never left home without his bullwhip and brown Fedora hat. So you should pack a toolbox too. And in that toolbox stuff stuff the 'Zero State' concept. This incorporates the idea that all paradigms require an investment of belief by you to give them life. This is like a projection in the Zero State, which is like the underlying field of all possibilities -- a blank slate if you will, on which you project your paradigm. Basically you are working with the idea that all paradigms exist within something larger and better.

In the School of Thinking, they offer a code called CVStoBVS which stands for Current View of Situation to Better View of Situation. If you remember that there is always a better view of the situation (a better paradigm) you’ll leave exit room from the paradigm you are currently exploring.

Think: “It’s just a paradigm. It’s not the Absolute Truth.”

Now you know how to explore a paradigm without getting trapped by it. You’ll probably get trapped or temporarily stuck anyway. But if you remember these tips, and remember you are an explorer of paradigms not a marketer or apostle of a particular paradigm, you will get free again. And in freedom, you’ll be more creative.

Paradigm Shifting: Creativity Through Paradigm Shifting

2007-07-21T13:31:00.000+01:00

Paradigm Shifting: Creativity Through Paradigm Shifting
A paradigm is a fundamental world view. It’s how you see and understand the world you live in. A paradigm is formed from a mixture of current scientific ‘fact’, best guesses and the comfortable fictions of belief. Most people are deeply engrained with their paradigm. Changing it in even the slightest way causes deep anxiety and discomfort. Depending on the nature of the person they will adapt to the change quickly, slowly or not at all. In the latter case, they will resist the evidence of the change in paradigm.

Paradigm shifts occur when an old idea is replaced with a new idea. Ideally, paradigm shifts are evolutionary and progressive. This is not always the case. Examples of paradigm shifts include Columbus proving the world was round not flat, Gallileio introducing the concept of heliocentrism rather than geocentrism, or the people of the world coming to terms with an alien invasion in the movie, Independence Day.

Unconscious becomes conscious
Paradigm shifts can be likened to unconscious bits of information becoming conscious. Like those moments of illumination when you suddenly recognise a pattern of behaviour as emanating from some childhood event. Paradigm shifts are revolutionary. They stop you in your tracks. They surprise you because they break the skin of your accepted beliefs and comfort zones, and inject new knowledge, energy and life into your experience.

Some paradigm shifts are global. The pictures taken of the ‘Earthrise’, during the first moon walk, are said to have caused a paradigm shift in humanity’s understanding and appreciation of our shared planet.

Some paradigm shifts are personal. Like when you discover your guru is a sleaze bag or your preacher is a pervert. Your cherished beliefs are assaulted by the rude awakening. You are forced to question what you have been believing in.

If paradigm shifts cause new awareness, new understanding and ‘movement’ in your mental positioning … it’s got to be a good thing for creativity, insight and discovery.

So, we want to explore the idea of deliberate paradigm shifting.

The role of paradigm shifting
Deliberate paradigm shifting can start with your 'trying-on' of various existing paradigms. In this instance, you want to take the attitude of being an actor taking on a new role for a season on the stage, or for the duration of a movie. He or she goes into it, knowing that it is for a limited duration, and that they will emergy from it the other side. Knowing also that it is just a mantle that they assume during the play or during filming. They put it down again afterwards. However, while in the play or during filming, the actor attempts to become that character, and fill that role completely.

This is a good attitude to have when exploring paradigm shifting.

Who you are
Start by defining your own current paradigm. Make thumbnail notes on what it is you believe about ‘life, the universe and everything’. Most people define themselves by their beliefs. Your paradigm is an important reference point for defining who you are. Without it, you can feel lost, like you don’t know who you are anymore. If you take the time to define your own personal world view, you can leave it there, written down, while you explore alternatives.

The 'current paradigms' changing room
Next, look around you and explore alternative paradigms. Perhaps you can explore the paradigm of someone like Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. And contrast that to the paradigm of Sai Baba or Pope Benedict. Compare the paradigm of Gandhi to that of someone like Carlos the Jackal.

You can explore scientific paradigms, social paradigms, racial or sexual paradigms. As you shift through paradigms, what will you discover?

What it takes to shift paradigms
Paradigm shifting takes a certain amount of courage and a great deal of awareness. You will be shaken up. You will be stretched out of your comfort zones. And this is a good thing. We are too comfortable in our definitions. Too at ease within out accepted limits. Too stubborn about what we know. We treat our paradigms like hammers and see everything else as a nail. We stoically apply what we know to every situation regardless of whether it really works or not.

Breaking up the ice
By paradigm shifting, you break up these crusted formations in your mind. Like an ice breaker, your paradigm shifts allow the water of life and creativity and insight to flow again. Paradigm shifting makes minds more flexible, fluid and adaptable. You become more creative by having the mental fluency to adopt new ideas, new insights and incorporate them into your thinking.

Paradigm Tolerance
This concept of paradigm shifting may help you develop a tolerance for the real ground-shaking paradigm shifts that may occur in your lifetime. Paradigm shifts occur on a heirarchical scale of importance. Your insight that your backache only occurs when you get scared about your finances may shake your personal paradigm… but it wouldn’t rock your world like someone inventing and making widely available an anti-gravity suit so you can fly.

Go on! Lever open your mind with deliberate paradigm shifting.

Using beliefs versus abusing beliefs

2007-07-20T10:40:00.000+01:00

You’re an explorer. You’ve decided life is more than just the daily grind. You’re on a mission to find out what underlies it. Like the Scooby Doo team, you’re a mystery hunter. But not for you the spooky fairground or the haunted mansion. You’re investigating the mystery of Life itself.

You look around to see if anyone else has figured it out. Plenty claim to have worked it out. They package their ideas as beliefs. And they want you to join in and share their belief. People take comfort in having shared beliefs. The more people they can get to believe their idea also, the easier it becomes for them to believe in it totally themselves. Ideas are like that.

Beliefs are just packages of ideas orbiting around a particular theme. The theme is the big idea. The mothership idea. And it is hungry for your energy. It lives and thrives by accumulating believers to feed it with belief energy. An idea can only run and run when it has legs. Yours!

So here you are in a whole world of beliefs and paradigms. They are all jostling and fighting for your attention. You have the one thing they need to survive. Attention.

To really understand a belief, you have to experience it from the inside. But there is great danger because once you are inside a belief, it has your attention, and it doesn’t want to let it go. Beliefs are clever little things. Devious even. They are structured to make it hard for you to let the belief go. Stop believing and you’ll be an outcast, an outsider. Stop believing and you’ll be… damned! Fear is a useful weapon in sustaining beliefs and retaining people’s energy and attention.

Explorers seek to live above beliefs though. Explorers seek freedom and liberation and inifinite states of energy and understanding. Explorers seek to improve upon what is known. That is abhorrent to beliefs. A belief has to be static, fixed and limited. Only by its defintion can it have life. Beliefs are threatened by evolution. Some beliefs even ban the concept!

But there are some benefits to beliefs. And we explorers don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater do we? What’s the point of exploring anything if we don’t take what’s of value from it. (Gosh, listen to me, I would have made a great colonialist!)

We can derive comfort and confidence from certain beliefs. We can use certain beliefs to give us a mental structure (a navigational point) with which to explore this life.

Imagine if you found yourself in deep outer space, a zillion miles from Earth and everything you know. You’ve no body, just consciousness. How would you know which way was up, or down, left or right? You wouldn’t. You would have nothing to navigate by. No way of understanding or relating to where you are. You would have to start naming things, and forming a belief about where you are. It’s made up. It’s your best guess. But it gives you a basic framework to work with. And you derive some comfort from that.

It’s like when the first European settlers got to America or Australia. Everything was new and unknown to them. So they would set up a village and name it after some town that was familiar to them back in the mother country. That made them feel more secure.

So, beliefs can be useful.

But, as stated, beliefs don’t like to let go of you. Beliefs as memes want to infect other people. They want you to become converts and apostles. Beliefs need you to ‘spread the word’ and pass on the virus. Beliefs need fresh host minds to propogate in. So, beware! If you use a belief, keep your escape hatch open. Don’t lose yourself in a belief. If you do, you’ll stop being an explorer and will instead be a believer. And believers abuse beliefs by seeking to infect others (often against their will) with the belief meme.

At least, that’s my belief! ;-) .

And you’re welcome to share it! :-))

Your Multiple Paradigm Tolerance Factor

2007-07-19T09:54:00.000+01:00

Creative thinking requires exposure to many ideas so you can formulate new connections. Confusion can arise when those ideas include beliefs or paradigms of ‘ultimate truth’. The degree to which you can be flexible enough to shift from paradigm to paradigm without going crazy-bonkers can be called your multiple paradigm tolerance factor.

You wear sunscreen or sunblock cream with a high Sun Protection Factor to protect you from the burning UV rays of the sun. When exploring multiple paradigms you’ll need some kind of protection too. Otherwise you’ll get mentally burned. I speak from experience.

If you are an explorer of big ideas, part of the new age, or what’s commonly called a ‘seeker’, you can probably resonate with this concept. You’ve got a bookcase full of eastern and western philosophies. You’ve got Yoga, Chi Kung, you’ve got channelled teachings, you’ve got ancient spiritual texts, you’ve got this guru, that philosopher, the success gurus spouting quantum physics, and the agnostic scientist presenting his or her grand theory of everything. You’re hungry for Truth. You’re on a path to enlightenment. But you’ve no map, no clue, and everyone else is trying to sell you on their particular meme. Couple that with the demands of daily life, your aging body, and the challenges of getting ahead in this world. You’ve got a recipe for some serious existential stress.

So how do you deal with it? First off, recognise that there will be stress from entertaining multiple paradigms or belief systems. Accept it. Leonard da Vinci talked about the creative importance of developing a tolerance for ambiguity and paradox. In the space between two conflicting beliefs, there is opportunity for innovation, insight and the new. I think of that space as a kind of chaos, like the primordial chaos out of which new worlds are born.

I think once you’ve established that the stress of paradigm shifting will occur, it becomes part of the known. You’ve outlined it, which puts you back in the big picture observer role. This gives you the tolerance factor. The confusion chaos can now occur within the space of your awareness. And becomes more bearable because you are bigger than it, and have a rationale for it.

The other way of dealing with it is the simple brain dump. Just dump everything you are exploring and get some rest. Be normal again. Wake up afresh the next day and start again. Meditate a little. This will give you insight and space. The more mental space you can create the greater will be your multiple paradigm tolerance factor.