Creative trickbag part 1: the zebratree

Here are some well known but not often discussed techniques from the trickbag which guarantee to spice up your creative life. And anyone can learn them.

They are all predicated on the following observation: minds and groups solve problems and are creative more efficiently when they actively manage variety and constraints. And creativity is a wicked problem, you have to blunder into it first to know what you are doing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem - more VUCA by any chance?

Here are the techniques

1. Have a vision and enter a future success mindset. All creativity springs from here. It is the wellspring, the rising sap. Find your energy and your passion. Whatever does it for you. Find a creative mentor if you can - can be living or dead (my morbid preference - or were they just better?). Note I use variations of proof by induction here: assume something is true and then go for it. Read this for a masterclass, you don't have to be good at maths: https://math.hawaii.edu/home/pdf/putnam/PolyaHowToSolveIt.pdf
2. Have faith - all problems can be solved, even the impossible ones, so reach for the sky. And if you are struggling with a problem, solve a related one. Or assume the problem has been solved and work through the implications - your creative brain will thank you. Seek the flow
3. Have an open mind. The creative process is dangerous, disturbing and disgusting as it taps into our primal circuits. Bravery required. Be creative in private if you have to but let it out (have a closed mind for the reductive stage by all means). Run towards the burning building
4. Stripe your techniques - the zebratree - every technique you learn has its limitations yet the human potential for creativity is limitless. Be the zebra: try one technique, then another before cycling back to the first. Done a lot of Agile? Try some waterfall, and vice versa, danced to a lot of Grime? Try ballroom. It's what the brain craves and it will reward you. Apply the variant to idea development. Go for an expansive off-the-wall freakout, then temper it with some reductive constraints, then repeat. Drugs companies know this trick (see https://www.lifescienceleader.com/doc/the-biggest-secrets-of-innovation-0001). And so do storytellers and musicians: tension and release. Same idea. It's like a digestive system
5. Make it fun. Creative play is a natural state - as children we all do it - and for people who are struggling help them join the party. Or suffer the vine. This also works but is a darker path. It has been said that Mstislav Rostropovich played a meaner cello before he fled the Soviet Union. The creative urge is linked to both reproduction and death
6. Resist the urge for perfection - most advanced creatives seek it but understand it is unachievable. Carpet weavers in the Islamic world leave flaws to remind them that only God is perfect. And in doing so, perfection is attained
7. Become a better person:

“If a musician wants to become a fine artist, he must first become a finer person.” ― Shinichi Suzuki, Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education

And here are some absolute creative killers to avoid:

1. Doubt and judgement (positive or negative) - from yourself or anyone else. As an artist, listen and read anything you like but if it is about you, pay no heed. When learning to improvise, for example, understand you are bootstrapping your own creative language - nobody else's
2. Framing narratives - from yourself or others. The creative urge is a type of possession - let it guide you and be the vessel it craves
3. Appealing to popularity or fashion or sentiment or doing it for money. Yes, Jeff Koons is rich but Van Gogh will project further into our future. Be authentic
4. The person from Porlock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock (or was this Coleridge's excuse?)
5. Grammerly ads

Inspiration

Here is a selection of creatives that have influenced me.

"Do not seek the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought." Matsuo Bashō 

Akira Kurosawa is one of my heroes. Apart from loving his films I really admire the balance he had between expansive and reductive creative processes. He was a master at both, a true auteur. I learnt later he was influenced by early tragedy and served seven years as an apprentice developing and applying his editing skills before branching out into directing.

George Daniels was another. He worked intuitively and never drew a design (only retrospectively) and worked to exhaustion every day. He made about one pocket watch a year using mastership of 35 different skills and invented the co-axial escapement. His watches sell for millions and he left a legacy of excellence behind which is continued by his erstwhile apprentice, Roger Smith.

More of my favourite examples of creativity in action:

De Bono - six-way stripe:

Three master creatives going at it - would love to hear the tape if anyone has a link:

Auteur shows us how it is done:

The inimitable Rembrandt keeping it authentic:

Lou and team:

Thanks for the inspiration, guys. Why not share your creative process and what inspires you? I'll leave you with a freshly-minted quote:

"Creativity is courage on acid," Christopher Patten