Enhancing Personal Creativity 

The major purpose of these lessons (books) is to describe how creativity works, and how culture evolves as domains are transformed by the curiosity and dedication of a few individuals. But another goal was to learn, from the lives of such men and women, how everyone's life could be made more creative. How can our days, too, be filled with excitement? 

You probably already have formed some ideas about how to experience life more creatively (style, hobby, sport, etc.). At the very least, you have learned about the obstacles that creative individuals have to surmount and the strategies they use to increase the likelihood that they will accomplish original work. I will share these insights and present them as explicit suggestions for how to apply them to everyday life.

These suggestions hold no promises for great creative achievement. As is clear by now, to move from personal to cultural creativity one needs talent, training, and an enormous dose of good luck. Without access to a domain (task, hobby), and without the support of a field (audience), a person has no chance of recognition. Even though personal creativity may not lead to fame and fortune, it can do something that from the individual's point of view is even more important: make day-to-day experiences more vivid, more enjoyable, more rewarding. When we live creatively, boredom is banished and every moment holds the promise of a fresh discovery. Whether or not these discoveries enrich the world beyond our personal lives, living creatively links us with the process of mental enhancement.

Most of the suggestions derived from the study of creative lives can be implemented by anybody regardless of age, gender, or social condition. Some of the steps, however, are more appropriate to parents or other adults who want to provide optimal conditions for developing the creativity of children. We cannot change conditions in our own childhood that would make us more curious and hence enhance creativity, but we can change conditions for the next generation.

I am assuming that each person has, potentially, all the mental energy he or she needs to lead a creative life. However, there are four major sets of obstacles that prevent many from expressing this potential. Some of us are exhausted by too many demands, and so have trouble getting hold of and activating our psychic energy in the first place. Or we get easily distracted and have trouble learning how to protect and channel whatever energy we have. The next problem is laziness, or lacking discipline for controlling the flow of energy. And finally, the last obstacle is not knowing what to do with the energy one has. How to avoid these obstacles and liberate the creative energy we will learn here.

Vocabulary

• domain - (n) an area of study or interest
• reflections - (n) ideas brought by thinking
• extract - (v) to take a selection from a larger piece
• surmount - (v) to pass over safely
• derive - (v) to receive from a source

Questions 

1. How does Mihaly compare what he is doing with his book with what a doctor does to help keep people healthy? 

2. What two things happen when we live creatively?

3. What does Mihaly assume all people have?

4. What are the four obstacles that keep us from our creative potential? (LEND)

5. Assignment: Write a four paragraph essay describing how Mihaly's four obstacles to creativity appear in your own life. Be sure to relate the obstacles with specific details.