Notes on the Creative Process, Selfishness, Thinking Wrong, and the Education System
A relatively unedited excerpt from my notebook, 5/19/09.
Artists and designers, by the nature of their craft, are selfish. And that selfishness is necessary. Time spent dreaming, playing, napping, or lost in thought is essential to creativity.
The fact of the matter is that creative minds never really take vacations (Anne Pundyk), but always being in engaged in that serious play (Paula Scher) is what creates great ideas.
To do things the right way, the way you’re told, while not asking why, is relatively easy. I think that I struggle to think right, to just do what I’m told, to just get it over with, but to me those right ways are not right.
“Maybe it’s wrong-footed trying to fit people into the world, rather than trying to make the world a better place for people.” (Paul McHugh — from Brain Gain by Margaret Talbot — The New Yorker)
In public high schools today, thinking creatively, thinking wrong, means getting an F. Mediocre efficiency is prized and while actual effectiveness is naively ignored. In this flawed system, creativity is somewhat of a disability.
