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Einstein said that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” because “knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
They’re able to take what is known, dream of new possibilities, and bring them into the world.
Steve Jobs said creativity is “just connecting things.”
Mark Twain said “all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.”
No magnificent product of the imagination—whether a machine, painting, or philosophy—was created in a complete vacuum. The invention of the telegraph took the efforts of a thousand, but the last man, who added that final inspired touch, got the credit.
When you start viewing creativity as a process of combination, and imagination as the ability to connect, stretch, and merge things in new ways, creative brilliance becomes less mystifying. A creative geniu...
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Don’t confuse creativity and imagination with “thinking” either. Ray Bradbury said that thinking is the enemy of creativity because it’s self-conscious. When you think you sit calmly and try to reason through something in a structured, logical way. Creativity dances to a different tune. Once you flip that switch, things get a bit chaotic. Ideas start buzzing. Images start popping into your head. Fragments of all kinds of data find their way into orbit. We’re pulled in one direction, then suddenly our instincts send us flying in another. Material collides and fuses, disappears and reappears.
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There’s a catch to “combinatorial creativity,” though. Before you can connect dots, you need to have dots to connect. The more material you’re exposed to in the world, the more grist you’ll have for your imagination mill. Tesla fully immersed himself in the world of electricity.
By exposing yourself to an abundant variety of ideas, facts, art, and stories, and by pulling from your vast collection in many different ways—by entertaining any idea no matter how seemingly absurd—you can bring your imagination to life. And
It takes curiosity to find your call to adventure, it takes courage to venture into the unknown, and it takes imagination to create your path. And to, like Tesla did, create it exactly as you envision it, no matter how much work it takes, or how many people try to stop you.
Greatness does not come lightly. It requires that you make sacrifices of time, interests, and--sometimes--possessions. The further you move toward greatness, the more greatness demands from you.
