Brimming with ideas yet......
Ideas are overflowing in my brain yet I cannot think anymore! The concept comes, flows some distance out of the source and then settles down like a lake, or rather a lake formed out of compulsion when the stream struck an obstacle. Creativity is a fascinating power, indeed. It is like fuel--mesmerizing when used with the right combination of ingredients and to the correct degree. At the same time, like fuel, an excess of it leads to an explosion and then ashes. Ideas and possibilities are coming to me at breakneck speed and somehow the processor part of my brain that actually frames out the execution of these ideas is unable to keep up with it. Each thought is demanding absolute commitment from my creativity and I am realizing that time management and organization cannot alleviate the discord.
Creativity is not dependent on our wills--at least not the true kind that produces what we call 'originality'. It appears that we are rationed a portion of it that we can use for a certain time period. If we exhaust our allotted ration before the time is over, we cannot summon it at will. We may get some new thoughts but when we review them with a fresh mind we will definitely see that they have paled in comparison to the ones that we got when our creative juices were really running. As an example, let me mention the task of developing my website. To convey true meaning and substance in it, I have to think creatively. Every video, every word, every image has to be carefully juxtaposed to relate to each other and imply something relevant. I am still stuck on my home page because the right idea just refuses to come to me. I cannot think of the most striking way to design that page right now. I know my objective--the page should convey clearly to the observer significant things about my core interests, goals and my contribution to the grand scheme. It should reveal all this in a way that catches the eye and holds the gaze.
It is intriguing to think why we should have rations of creativity and why the best work comes only by using that ration. Creative forces are supposed to be the strongest during incubation periods of thinking when neurons are not firing at their usual rates--that is to say less the neural noise due to mundane tasks, higher the creativity. Another essential element that has been mentioned as necessary for creativity is the transcallosal exchange of information between the two brain hemispheres. Both assumptions make sense but do not answer the question completely of how creativity functions. The first assumption, especially, is highly clear. If we think of the brain as a system that processes data signals (neural data) and it is searching for some particular signals, the less the level of noise in that data, the more accurate the output it generates in terms of isolating the signal that it is searching for. The collaboration between the hemispheres is another saga altogether--in fact, it merits another blog all to itself. At this point, therefore, I let my 'creative flow' come to a rest!
posted by Ichakraborty @ 7:43 PM
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