More on the Myth of Originality

Old word cloud based on my blog

I just got an e-mail update from Smithsonian Magazine sending me to one of their blogs to read this post on Combinatorial Creativity and the Myth of Originality which has some of the same observations as my Steal Like An Artist posts. This one ties in some scientific data about the way the brain works that backs up what creative people intuitively know about how ideas come to us. I recognize this one from a book I read long before I started gathering quotations this year:

"Yet, no matter how much we know about the brain and the inner workings of creativity, the creative process itself will never be easy. Its most frustrating reality is that this crux of combinatorial creation – that magic moment when ideas click together and “make a stable combination” – cannot be forced. In fact, the more we consciously dwell on a problem that requires an innovative solution, the more likely we are to corner ourselves into the nooks of the familiar, entrenched in habitual patterns of thought that lead where they always have."

I liked this observation too because I know it to be the way I design:

"To create is to combine existing bits of insight, knowledge, ideas, and memories into new material and new interpretations of the world, to connect the seemingly dissociated, to see patterns where others see chaos".