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Using the Tools of Creative Writing, Memoir, Art, Photography, Storytelling and Mindfulness

What is Creativity?
Lets start with the dictionary de nition, however brief and limited, it covers the basics:
Creativity: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, and to create meaningful
new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, or imagination.
To this de nition let us add the following:
Creativity: an act of transformation by which we turn one idea or thing into something else by
way of intellectual, chemical or manual alchemy.
And this:
Creativity: life as a gigantic erector set. You can put anything together in new and original ways
the most immaterial with the most concrete, the most esoteric melded to the most down to
earth.
Albert Einstein referred to this thinking process as combinatory play.

The Courage to Fail Over and Over Again

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The Courage to Fail Over and Over Again

Creativity is the experimental laboratory of civilization. It expects and needs trial and error, and
the courage to fail over and over again. In the words of Samuel Becket on the secret of his
creativity:
Fail, fail again, fail better. Samuel Becket

The Sum of Creativity is Always

Greater than its Parts
Creativity may look like a noun but it is really a verband in speci c an action. It could be an
interior or exterior processa thought or a manifestation, an idea or a product, but it is always an
action, an energy, a putting ones self forth into the unknown. Creativity is the world of the
intrepid explorer, of the adult 2 year old, who never ceases to ask the questions:
Why?
What if?

Can you Teach Creativity?

In our workshops people are always asking us: can you really teach creativity? Our answer: We
can teach it, but you wont really learn it until you remember the days when you had it. We
suggest they think back to the time when they kids. We were all creative as children. We were
creativity specialists before we learned to walk or talk.You never have to learn about your
creativity from scratch.
Being creative is pretty much like learning how to ride a bikeyou never forget how. But you do
have to re-engage the muscles. Society and, in particular, education and the workplace, tramples
blithely upon our originalityso much so that most people forget they were ever creative at all.
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. Anna Freud

Creativity Makes us In nitely Adaptable and Flexible

Creativity is one of our primary tools for survival. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our
ancestors had to be adaptable to their changing environments in order to survive. The ones who
thought out of the box were the ones who escaped getting eatenwhich is why they are the
ones who are our ancestors.
Other species can communicate, make tools, even plan for the futurebut we humans have the
unique ability to put things together in new and different ways. We are so curious that we not
only want to put stuff together, we like to take it apartjust to see how it works.
Many young tinkerers joyfully pull apart watches, kitchen faucets, even car engines until formal
schooling teaches them that that kind of behavior is not the way to go about learning.
Granted, we do not necessarily need to re-invent the wheel by destroying the family automobile;

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Granted, we do not necessarily need to re-invent the wheel by destroying the family automobile;
but there are times when unraveling the known is the only method to nding new and better
ways of doing things. In fact, it is often the only way to revolutionizing how we conduct our lives.
There is no cure for curiosity. Dorothy Parker

More than a Pinch of Chance

Civilizations come into being or advance when people do things in ways they have never done
before. Nomads give up wandering and decide to stay put in one place.That decision leads us to
sedentary societies and all the social, cultural, and scienti c advances they manifest.
Conversely, sedentary societies breed explorers and discoverers, who expand the reach of their
people, mentally and physically, far beyond their national borders and cultures.
Humans invent and reinvent the con guration of the world over and over again; and each time it
changes, all of us are changed. These transformations are propelled by the driving force of
creativity, the ingredients of which are: curiosity, imagination, exibility of thought and action,
trial and error, tenacity, and more than a pinch of chance.

A Wonderful Tool called Creativity

We humans have a precious tool called creativity. We are practically born with it and with it we
can do what any reasonable person would believe was impossible.
So why do so many of us give up using this priceless asset as adults? Intensely creative people do
not give it up. Its not as if they have more creativity, but they certainly use it more. Creativity is
like any muscle, the more you work it, the stronger it becomes.
Einstein once said:
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know
and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know
and understand.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will
never exist through any other medium and will be lost. Martha Graham

We may not all be Geniuses,

but who said Creativity is just for Geniuses?
We all have many original and fantastic thoughts that could be extremely valuable to the world
we live in. But how many times do we give these ideas a chance to see the light of day? Every
ounce of human creativity is needed on this planet in order for it to survive and ourish. The
creativity of each human being is as unique as her DNA and is necessary to the creative fabric of
life on earth. Are you giving your creativity the chance it deserves to contribute to the creative
impulse of life?
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impulse of life?

The key question isnt What fosters creativity? But it is why in Gods name
isnt everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it
crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create?
But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense
of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created
anything.
Abraham Maslow

You cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
Maya Angelou

2016
New York October 21 - 24

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Upcoming Workshops
2016
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I cannot tell you how grateful I am for having attended your Workshops. I attended 4 Workshops, 2
of them back to back. They sparked my creative drive and gave me permission to say YES to the
making of my lms. The Workshops strengthened the practice of using my imagination and my
con dence that creativity was available to me if I give myself the time, the quiet and the witnessing
that it deserved.. I have you to thank, in large part, for putting me on my present path.
Writer, Artist, Documentary Director. Exec. Producer Oscar Winner 'Born in Brothels'. Winchester, MaPamela Boll,

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