BY: SWIKAR OLI
Despite the popular assumption, creativity is not a capricious muse, continually teasing then eluding writers and artists, revealing only a brief fragment of itself in flight before disappearing, often before we can assimilate the shades of their essence. Those of us who know the feeling recognize the flash of inspiration early and prepare for it before it comes into view. When we manage to capture this fleeting thought or hit a ‘flow’ with our ideas, connections appear in problems that had stumped us just a minute ago, messes of information consolidate into a fresh perspective and our motivations receive a revitalizing jolt. These flashes of great ideas just beyond view can in fact be trained and harnessed, appearing for those who set the right conditions for them to appear more frequently. Scientists have begun understanding this process of creativity and have shown that it augments our problem-solving and learning skills and overall memory. Steven Kotler, a bestselling author and journalist, explains the eye-opening new research:
