Creativity With an Affinity for Darkness
The Dark Opera
  • Bio
  • Contact

Hey You, thanks for stopping by.

Scroll down for my latest work as well as for whatever's on my mind.

It's not all just dark stuff, so check back for a laugh, some motivation or for pure randomness.
 

I want to read a story

Education as a Barrier to Creativity

1/14/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education" Albert Einstein

With education and mastery comes familiarity and often times rigidity of thought about the way things work. To be clear, education on its own is valuable and necessary. Trouble is, that setting into familiarity and rigidity likely stems breakthrough creative ideas that result in important change.   

Paula Scher, A graphic designer speaking at the Art Center Design Conference (2008), talks about the kind of important breakthrough creative ideas above. She calls it ‘serious play’.

“…serious play is about invention, change, rebellion, not perfection…”
Scher talks  about key points in her life where she produced ‘serious play’. 

On the subject of her early career and designs resulting from her hatred for Helvetica and the discovery of overseas fonts, she states:
“That kind of passion drove me into very serious play. A kind of play I could never do now because I’m too educated”
Later she adds
“The best way to accomplish serious design, which I think we all have the opportunity to do, is to be totally and completely unqualified for the job...”
The full TED talk is here:
In Steve Martin’s book “Born Standing up: A Comic’s Life” he says: 
“Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do.”
From  Jonah Lehrer’s book “Imagine”: As per Dean Simonton, a psychologist at UC-Davis, Simonton “…has shown that physicists tend to make their most important discoveries early in their careers, typically before the age of thirty: The only field that peaks before physics is poetry.”
“Simonton argues that youth benefit from their outsider status – they’re innocent and ignorant, which makes them more willing to embrace radical new ideas. Because they haven’t become encultured, or weighted down with too much conventional wisdom…”
But Simonton also brings up mathematician, Paul Erdos, who had seen steady important productivity throughout his career and points to his having had the ability to explore his discipline in working with different people and problems to maintain the viewpoint of the outsider. 

Turns out continuing education and mastery may not be where creativity goes to die after all. That is, if we can be creative about keeping things fresh and be mindful about finding ways to keep our minds open.

Lehrer summarizes, “…Outsider creativity isn’t a phase of life – it’s a state of mind” 

- Josh
1 Comment
Construction Cleaning Mountain View link
10/2/2022 03:35:00 am

This was great to read thanks

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Welcome to the Dark Opera

    Celebrating and Inspiring Creativity

    'Like' our Facebook page
    'follow' us on Twitter
    'Subscribe' to the Youtube channel!


    Blog Writers

    Josh
    Kevin

    Archives

    October 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Book News
    Book Reviews
    Comics
    Creativity
    Dark Things
    For Your Life
    Game Review
    Gaming News
    Humor
    Humour
    Ideas
    Inspiration
    Interviews
    Movie Collecting
    Movie News
    Movie Review
    Movies
    Movie Short
    Movie Trailers
    Movie Trivia
    Music
    Poetry
    Recommendations
    Series Review
    Site News
    Ultimate Hot Chocolate Recipe
    Website Update
    What To Watch
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.