Observe the actual for its potential
Early into my first English-teaching job, my colleague and roommate Ian showed me ticket to a baseball game. He said, “This ticket is a lesson.” I asked what he meant, and then he clarified. “The ticket has shapes on it and colors on it. You can use it to teach those topics. Same with the numbers on the ticket. The logo for the Hanwha Eagles – that’s a bird. You can teach birds using that image. The whole game of baseball – its vocabulary and rules, for example – can be taught using this ticket.” That was a better lesson in teaching than the teacher’s certification I had received a few months’ earlier. It taught me that anything could be a lesson and that the limits to the lesson may be in the limits of my own creativity.
A similar story describes what inspired Velcro, which “was invented by a man named George de Mestral in the 1940's while hunting in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. Mr. de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, realized that the tiny hooks of the cockle-burs were stuck on his pants and in his dog's fur and wondered how they attached themselves. Under the scrutiny of the microscope, he observed the hooks engaging the loops in the fabric of his pants.”
It is important to be curious about the world, motivated to look at it. Having a closed mind is a bad idea, but so is having an open mind, in the sense of the mind simply being an open receptacle into which information falls. No, it is better to have an active mind, to see the world and to think about what was seen. Knowledge is not a sole invention of the mind, nor is it the world writing itself on our minds. Knowledge begins as perception of the world, then later taking those perceptual memories and experiences further.
Comedy coach Neil Leiberman separates comedians from those he calls the “fog people,” those people who breeze through life as if nothing deserved careful notice or study, a bit too content with ordinary, everyday life to notice any of its perversities. He argues that comedians are needed to hold truth up to the faces of the fog people and point out what they did not see or refused to see. Observational comics notice everyday things and make witty observations from them. George Carlin built about five minutes of material around food in the refrigerator. Jerry Seinfeld did a whole routine on cotton balls. Mitch Hedberg did comedy about problems with chocolate bars.
Noticing the ordinary in a new way is helpful, but so is noticing things slightly out of place. If anything is slightly different from expected, a creative person can notice it. If you walk into a restroom and you see both a no-smoking sign and an ashtray, comedy about the mixed message that represents could ensue. Your local bookstore may be selling books by Henry Hazlitt, your favorite author, for the sake of argument. When they have The Conquest of Poverty on sale, that juxtaposition of facts should get noticed.
The world has its share of data that can inspire potential inventions, stories, ironies, routines, and lessons. Being observant is part of catching them. To have an active, observant, curious mind, to be different in mental disposition to the fog people in the world – this is one ticket to a more creative mental process.
A similar story describes what inspired Velcro, which “was invented by a man named George de Mestral in the 1940's while hunting in the Jura mountains in Switzerland. Mr. de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, realized that the tiny hooks of the cockle-burs were stuck on his pants and in his dog's fur and wondered how they attached themselves. Under the scrutiny of the microscope, he observed the hooks engaging the loops in the fabric of his pants.”
Downloaded Feb 19 2021 https://www.hookandloop.com/invention-velcro-brand/#:~:text=The%20VELCRO%C2%AE%20brand%20of,wondered%20how%20they%20attached%20themselves.
Creative people observe the actual for its potential. The ability to focus on the real world and to see the unusual in it can fuel your ability to develop something novel and/or helpful. Creativity is that ability to combine ideas together and make something new. Observation therefore precedes creation. Einstein was wrong when he said that imagination was more important than knowledge. It is the opposite: knowledge is needed for imagination, and precedes imagination in importance.It is important to be curious about the world, motivated to look at it. Having a closed mind is a bad idea, but so is having an open mind, in the sense of the mind simply being an open receptacle into which information falls. No, it is better to have an active mind, to see the world and to think about what was seen. Knowledge is not a sole invention of the mind, nor is it the world writing itself on our minds. Knowledge begins as perception of the world, then later taking those perceptual memories and experiences further.
Comedy coach Neil Leiberman separates comedians from those he calls the “fog people,” those people who breeze through life as if nothing deserved careful notice or study, a bit too content with ordinary, everyday life to notice any of its perversities. He argues that comedians are needed to hold truth up to the faces of the fog people and point out what they did not see or refused to see. Observational comics notice everyday things and make witty observations from them. George Carlin built about five minutes of material around food in the refrigerator. Jerry Seinfeld did a whole routine on cotton balls. Mitch Hedberg did comedy about problems with chocolate bars.
Noticing the ordinary in a new way is helpful, but so is noticing things slightly out of place. If anything is slightly different from expected, a creative person can notice it. If you walk into a restroom and you see both a no-smoking sign and an ashtray, comedy about the mixed message that represents could ensue. Your local bookstore may be selling books by Henry Hazlitt, your favorite author, for the sake of argument. When they have The Conquest of Poverty on sale, that juxtaposition of facts should get noticed.
The world has its share of data that can inspire potential inventions, stories, ironies, routines, and lessons. Being observant is part of catching them. To have an active, observant, curious mind, to be different in mental disposition to the fog people in the world – this is one ticket to a more creative mental process.
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