Creativity
Thinking Outside Of The Box
The essence of creativity is captured in the idea of “thinking outside of the box”. In this concept, the box represents standard, routine processes while the area outside of the box represents ideas that are new, unrestricted, and creative. While we all aspire to operate “outside the box”, doing so becomes more difficult as we travel down our chosen path of mastery. It is ironic that the more we learn about a subject, the more likely we are to conform to the over-structured thinking of the box.
As we learn more about any topic, our thinking starts to constrict. Although it seems natural to think that increasing our knowledge about a subject is a type of expansion of the mind, as we gain more expertise about the topic, we rarely experience new learning. Rather than increasing our knowledge base, experts tend to learn more details about what they already know. The direction of knowledge rarely moves outward and almost always moves toward more precise but less flexible thinking.
The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.
-Michelangelo
Of course, education is a real thing. We have the ability to learn from experiences and use those lessons to more efficiently and effectively…
