This is exactly how it feels to be on a deadline or to work toward something with purpose. It’s effective and helps us get the work done but it’s not very creative. The open mode, by contrast, is a “relaxed . . . expansive . . . less purposeful mode . . . in which we’re probably more contemplative, more inclined to humor (which always accompanies a wider perspective) and, consequently, more playful. It’s a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate because we’re not under pressure to get a specific thing done quickly. We can play, and that is what allows our natural creativity to
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