Alex Alvis Art

Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - End

Because, believe me - no one appreciates better than I do - what trouble creative people are.  And how they stop decisive, hard-nosed bastards like us from running businesses efficiently.

I mean - we all know...if we encourage someone to be creative - the next thing is - they're rocking the boat...coming up with ideas...and asking us questions!

So!  Here's how to stamp out creativity in the rest of the organization and get a bit of respect going:

One.  Allow subordinates no humor!  It threatens your self-importance - especially your omniscience.  Treat all humor as frivolous or subversive.

Because subversive - is of course - what humor will be in your setup.  As it's the only way that people can express their opposition, since - if they express it openly - you're down on them like a ton of bricks!

So let's get this clear!  Blame humor for the resistance that your way of working creates. Then you don't have to blame your way of working. This is important. And I mean that solemnly. Your dignity is no laughing matter...

Second.  Keeping ourselves feeling irreplaceable involves cutting everybody else down to size.  So!  Don't miss an opportunity to undermine your employees' confidence.

A perfect opportunity comes when you're reviewing work that they've done. Use your authority to zero in immediately on all the things you can find wrong. Never never balance the negatives with the positives; only criticize - just as your school teachers did.

Always remember!  Praise Makes People Uppity!

Third.  Demand that people should always be actively doing things. If you catch anyone pondering - accuse them of laziness and/or indecision.  This is to starve employees of thinking time...because that leads to creativity and insurrection.

In a phrase - Keep That Mode Closed!

In this way - we no-nonsense types can be sure that the tiny, tiny, microscopic quantity of creativity in our organization will all be ours!

But! Let your vigilance slip for one moment, and you could find yourself surrounded by happy, enthusiastic, and creative people whom you might never be able completely to control - ever again!

So be careful!

Thank you.  And....good night.

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Labels: Alex Alvis Sculpture, how to be creative, humor, John Cleese on Creativity

Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt. 8

Four minutes left…

Ah!  How many Irish-- sorry, sorry

Well, look, the very last thing that I can say about creativity is this: it's like humor. In a joke - the laugh comes at a moment when you connect two different frameworks of reference in a new way.

Example.  There's the old story about a woman doing a survey into sexual attitudes who stops an airline pilot and asks him - amongst other things - when he last had sexual intercourse.

We laugh -eventually - at the moment of contact between two frameworks of reference: the way we express what year it is and the 24-hour clock.

Now, having an idea - a new idea - is exactly the same thing. It's connecting two hitherto separate ideas in a way that generates new meaning.

Now.  Connecting different ideas isn't difficult.  You can connect cheese with motorcycles or moral courage with light green, or bananas with international co-operation. You can get any computer to make a billion random connections for you, but these new connections or juxtapositions are significant only if they generate new meaning.

So as you play, you can deliberately try inventing these random juxtapositions, and then use your intuition to tell you whether any of them seem to have significance for you.

That's the bit the computer can't do. It can produce millions of new connections, but it can't tell which one of them smells interesting.

And, of course, you'll produce some juxtapositions which are absolutely ridiculous, absurd. Good for you!

Because Edward de Bono (who invented the notion of lateral thinking) specifically suggests in his book PO: Beyond Yes and No that you can try loosening up your assumptions by playing with deliberately crazy connections. He calls such absurd ideas "Intermediate Impossibles."

And he points out the use of an "Intermediate Impossible" is completely contrary to ordinary logical thinking in which you have to be right at each stage.

It doesn't matter if the "Intermediate Impossible" is right or absurd, it can nevertheless be used as a stepping stone to another idea that is right.

Another example of how, when you're playing, nothing is wrong.

So, to summarize.  If you really don't know how to start - or if you got stuck - start generating random connections and allow your intuition to tell you if one might lead somewhere interesting.

Well, that really is all I can tell you that won't help you to be creative.

 Everything.

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Labels: creating art, Dada, How Many does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?, humor, John Cleese on Creativity

Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt.5

Now the next factor, number four - is Confidence.

When you are in your space/time oasis, getting into the Open Mode - nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.

Now if you think about play, you'll see why. To play is to experiment - "What happens if I do this? What would happen if we did that? What if…?"

The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens, it's ok. So you cannot be playful if you're frightened that moving in some direction will be "wrong" -- something you "shouldn't have done."

Well, you're either free to play, or you're not.

As Alan Watts puts it, you can't be spontaneous within reason.

So you've got risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the break-through.

And now, the last factor.  The fifth - Humor.

Well, I happen to think the main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.

I think we all know that laughter brings relaxation, and that humor makes us playful, yet how many times have important discussions been held where really original and creative ideas were desperately needed to solve important problems?...but where humor was taboo because the subject being discussed was "so serious"?

This attitude seems to me to stem from a very basic misunderstanding of the difference between 'serious' and 'solemn'.

Now I suggest to you that a group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing matters that were extremely serious like the education of our children, or our marriages, or the meaning of life (and I'm not talking about the film), and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious.

Solemnity, on the other hand… I don't know what it's for. I mean, what is the point of it?

But solemnity? It serves pomposity, and the self-important always know at some level of their consciousness that their egotism is going to be punctured by humor -- that's why they see it as a threat. And so dishonestly pretend that their deficiency makes their views more substantial, when it only makes them feel bigger.

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Labels: Alex Alvis Sculpture, art business, confidence, creating art, creativity, How Many Dogs does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?, how to be creative, humor, John Cleese on Creativity