The Mysterious Lack of Creativity ($)

Unless you’re an artist, you won’t appreciate how little respect we have for creative people.

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“We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it. Schools kill creativity”— Ken Robinson

Hiding Creativity in Plain Sight

There are two ways to live: grow or don’t grow. If you don’t grow, then things don’t change and you’re surrounded by the same situations. This sounds boring, but it’s what must of us aspire to: the good life, comfortable and secure.

If you grow, then you either have to find a path or make one. We ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” referring to a roster of prefabricated identities. It’s only half a joke because we’re all a little nervous about our future.

My client Joe is a spirit medium. He came to me with unremitting tinnitus. During our work, Joe channeled his spirit guardian, or guardian angel, who said Joe’s tinnitus was necessary to motivate him. Were it not for the tinnitus, Joe wouldn’t be here.

Another client had an abusive childhood. There was a lot of trauma in their family history, yet my client still lives with the same parents who were abusive. Her father is now just annoying, and her mother complains about everything.

My client is bothered by their own negativity and low self-esteem, and wants to know how to be rid of it. I say, “Call out more negativity. Imagine all the worst and why. And then imagine all the things you want, and ask whether this would make things better?”

If you can’t make things better, then make them worse. I said, “Use your imagination. Your imagination leads you.” This client's negativity has resulted in her entering law school and establishing a new relationship.

“Great!” I say. What else can you accomplish by being negative? Perhaps you’ll get beyond it. You don’t need it.” Sometimes the problem is the solution.

Where Can You Find Insight?

The difference between creativity and insight is that creativity fails 99% of the time, while insight is the 1% that succeeds. But you cannot have one without the other. Creativity is a struggle and it usually fails, but these failures are not optional. People can be taught to be insightful if they’re first taught to be creative failures.

Today I was a guest on the Making Math Moments Matter podcast (https://makemathmoments.com/podcast/). This broadcast is for math teachers in Canada’s compulsory education system. I have no more affection for compulsory education than I do for communist reeducation. I dislike teachers and anyone who tells me what to think, and I was expecting our interview might take a dark turn.

Kids hate math because it’s made difficult, and it’s irrelevant. Those forced to take high school math and like it, are sissies who live for the teacher’s rewards. Perhaps one in a hundred glimpse math’s potential, and that’s no thanks to their teachers.

Math consists of four elements: measure, patterns, transformations, and equality. I have never seen a high school math course that teaches creative or useful math, and this is a crime. It is especially criminal because these four elements play a role in everything. It is more logical than our emotional mind, but, like Star Trek’s emotionless Dr. Spock, it can play a powerful role.

Those who teach math as the solving of equations prove the theorem that those who don’t know teach. Math is taught this way because no one in the school system really understands it. Certainly the math teachers don’t.

Math teachers are as subjugated as their students. Like soldiers, they’ve been brainwashed to believe they’re doing their best for their community. I agree with Making Math Moments Matter when they say, “Don’t throw out the textbook!” That would be wasteful. They should be recycled. Math teachers who can’t recreate the curriculum from memory should be put out to pasture.

If art class was a paint by numbers curriculum, art classes would be just as bad. Luckily, it’s not, and because it’s not, creativity can seep in at the edges. The low value given to being creative is evidenced by the low priority given to art. There is no A in the Three R’s.

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If you’d like to explore a creative plan for yourself. Schedule a free call with me at:

https://www.mindstrenghbalance.com/scheule15

Learning Creativity