Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide

by John Cleese

Creativity can be seen in every area of life—in science, or in business, or in sport. Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative.

And you can teach creativity. Or perhaps I should say, more accurately, you can teach people how to create circumstances in which they will become creative.

“Tortoise Mind.” This, he says, “proceeds more slowly…It is often less purposeful and clear-cut, more playful, leisurely or dreamy. In this mode we are ruminating or mulling things over, being contemplative or meditative. We may be pondering a problem, rather than earnestly trying to solve it.”

Children at play are totally spontaneous. They are not trying to avoid making mistakes.

The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about. Research has shown that, after an interruption, it can take eight minutes for you to return to your previous state of consciousness, and up to twenty minutes to get back into a state of deep focus.

perhaps the biggest interruption coming from your inside is caused by your worrying about making a mistake. This can paralyse you. “Oh,” you say to yourself, “I mustn’t think that because it might be WRONG.” Let me reassure you. When you’re being creative there is no such thing as a mistake.

New and “woolly” ideas shouldn’t be attacked by your logical brain until they’ve had time to grow, to become clearer and sturdier. New ideas are rather like small creatures. They’re easily strangled.

Picasso said that he drew better when he was ten than he ever did again.

The Buddhists have a phrase for this—“Beginner’s Mind”—expressing how experience can be more vivid when it’s not dulled by familiarity.

Remember the famous apology, “Sorry this is such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.”