TRIPLE STREAM:
Creativity is a new concept developed by
American Psychologist J. P. Guilford. It does not mean that there was no
creativity in persons before Guilford formulated it as a concept. There were always
creative persons who thought differently and acted differently than ordinary
people who followed beaten tracks. Guilford defined creativity as ‘divergent
thinking’ (thinking away from the subject). Words like ‘inventive’,
‘discovery’, ‘innovative’ and ‘original’ have relationship to creativity but
they are not synonyms. ‘Inventive’ means able to create or design. We say ‘he
has an inventive mind’. It generally relates to products, ‘Innovative’ means
introducing something new or unusual. For example we say, the industry
introduced innovative technologies. We call a person’s thinking ‘original’ if
he does not copy the current fashions or the existing trends. ‘Discovery’ means
finding for the first time something, which is already in existence. We all know
these things. Creativity is more useful than all the above, mostly because it
is useful in problem solving, crisis management as well as conflict-resolution.
It is different from I.Q. (Intelligent Quotient) and insight. The present day
tests and interviews for jobs are conducted to identify the candidates who
possess I.Q.
We often find that in actual life and
performance I.Q. candidates are failures. They are not found to be practically
successful. Why? It is because the realities and problems of life can be
tackled effectively only by persons of creativity. I.Q consists in ‘Convergent
thinking’ where as creativity is ‘divergent thinking’. Convergent thinking
means thinking in one direction or towards an area with which one is familiar.
On the other hand, divergent thinking means thinking ‘away’ or ‘outside’.
Creativity is also defined by Edward Debono as ‘lateral thinking’ which means
‘side-ways’. Therefore it may be considered as multi-directional approach,
surveying a problem from several angles and perspectives.
Creativity in persons can be discovered and
identified only by persons of shrewd judgement and trained mind, because such
persons are generally looked upon as crazy people or mavericks. Their ways are
unconventional and uncommon. They do not follow beaten tracks. They are like
square pegs in a round hole.
Creativiity cannot be taught. A special
syllabus is yet to be prepared for promoting it. But we can provide a setting
or atmosphere in which creativity can be encouraged and promoted. It may correlate
with intelligence in a broad ability range but it is different and superior
too. An atmosphere of freedom and informality fosters creative thinking. Rigid
rules, routinisation, mechanical habits of thinking, authoritarian style of
leadership, fear of taking risks, and an overly structured organization are
enemies of creativity. A tension-free, pleasant atmosphere provides a proper
setting for creativity.
Creativity belongs more to ‘affective’ domain
than ‘cognitive’ domain of behaviour. It is concerned with feelings and
imagination rather than knowledge and understanding. Personality factors more
than ability factors are important in causing creative behaviour. Therefore in
a way creativity is an aspect of personality. Personality can be developed.
Personality traits associated with creativity are ‘adjustment’, ‘adaptability’,
‘extrovertism’, ‘restlessness’, and ‘anxiety’ in rule-ridden work culture.
Scientists divide the brain into two parts - right hemisphere and
left hemisphere. The former is
more suited for visual imagery and the latter for verbal processing. Creativity
depends more on the properties of the right cerebral hemisphere. It is largely
concerned with imagination and intuition.
Creativity is often the highest state of the
human mind. It is neither intelligence nor mere imagination. It is akin
to intuition on the one hand and problem-solving skill on the other. Several
crises and problematic situations in management can be solved through creative
observation, association, selection and application of ideas and the art of
imagination. There is a special managerial technique called ‘BRAIN STORMING’
invented by Alcx Osborne and popularized by Edward Debono. It is group
dynamics. In a brain-storming session, ideas are invited from all the people of
the group and evaluated in the end.
Creativity occurs when we arc free from the
shackles of reason and the boredom of conformism. Rigidity produces atrophy and
wilting of wits. Six characteristics are generally associated with creativity:
1. Openness 2. flexibility 3. Diversity 4. Persistence 5. Introspection and 6.
Imagination
Meditation is expected to increase creativity
in a person. Meditation has nothing to do with religion. It is the technique of
turning the mind inwards, towards the source of infinite intelligence and
creative energy. Experiments have shown that it has produced splendid results.
Creative persons appear to be dull, odd and
eccentric. The following persons were school failures:
Einstein, Edgar Poe, Shelley, Rountzen, Whistler: Expelled for dullness
Bernard Shaw, Yeats: Poor Spelling
Franklin, Picasso, Adler, Jung: Poor in Maths
John Maynard Keynes: Miserably poor in Economics
Thomas Alva Edison: Bottom of class
Robert Burns: Dull in school
Gauguin: Dreamer
Watt: Dull and back-bencher
Turner used to leave the house at midnight
collect a bagful of stones, climb a tree and drop them in a pond! Keynes was a
failure in Economics! Rabindranath Tagore was weak in English spelling and his
teacher found fault with his English. Yellapragada Subba Rao and Srinivasa
Ramanujan were not educated to the extent necessary. Yet they became world
celebrities! In fact, they were not dull. They had other ideas. They had minds
of their own and special aptitudes. In life they became world famous.
Arnold Toynbee, the famous author of World
History mentioned his strange experience. Once he was walking in the eastern
part of London, near Victoria Terminus. He felt that he caught the foot of
Christ’s Crucifix (the feet of Jesus). Then the history of the whole world
passed through him. How do we explain that experience? Intuition and Creativity
are cousins.
Great discoveries of Science were made not in
Science Laboratories but in strange places in unusual settings. Archimedes
discovered the Law of Displacement and specific gravity etc when he was in his
bath tub! Newton discovered the Law of Gravitation when he was lounging in a
garden. His imagination was kindled by a falling apple. Einstein discovered the
relationship between time and space when he was on the sick bed in Peru.
Galileo’s first scientific discovery was when he knelt in the church to pray to
God. A person had just filled a hanging oil lamp and left it swinging in the
air. Galileo’s prayer was interrupted by the tick-tack of the burning lamp and
the sound started him on a trail of ideas which eventually led to the discovery
of the Rhythmic Principle of nature which is today applied to the counting of
the human pulse, the measurement of time on the clock, the eclipses of the sun and the movements of the stars - (Henry Thomas and Danial Thomas).
Kekule the medical scientist invented the
ring shape of Benzene when he was drowsy. It occurred to him when he observed a
snake catching its own tail! An engineer was able to invent a new method of
tunnel making by observing the bio-mechanics of a burrowing worm.
Goethe, the German scholar and author, said,
“It often seems to me as though an invisible genius was whispering something
rhythmical to me so that on my walks I always keep step to it and at the same
time fancy that I hear soft tones accompanying some song”. Schiller, another
famous writer said “With me conception has at first no definite or clear
object. This comes later. A certain musical state of mind precedes it. And this
is then followed by the poetic idea”. The fact that paraffin removes the stains
on the cloth was discovered by chance by Jean Baptiste Jolly when her servant
maid accidentally spilled it on the table cloth. Louis de Broque intuitively
found that Mathematics has not only corpuscular nature but also wave like
nature. Keplar discovered the relationship between the ocean tides and the moon
by intuitive observation from the beach.
Paul Ehlich synthesized 605 compounds for
chemical cure of the dreadful disease of Syphilis. He failed but doggedly
persisted. In the next attempt he discovered SALVARSAN which successfully cured
the disease. J.W. Von Goethe who was a poet and scientist declared that Peter
Camper was wrong in saying that man was distinguished from the animals by the
absence of inter-maxillary bone in the upper jaw. He was ridiculed. But after
a century his discovery was accepted by the scientists. Goethe might have been
guided by his intuition! Surrealist painter Salvador Dali, while daydreaming
dropped a spoon in the plate. In a strange transitional state, ideas bubbled to
the surface almost unbidden.
Edwin Land, America’s prolific inventor, says
how he invented Polaroid Camera. In 1943 his 3 year old daughter on their
outing asked him why she could not see the picture he had just taken. This made
him pursue the idea and achieve it. (Robert Epstein “How to get a New idea”).
Graham Bell invented the Telephone not in a Laboratory but by chance in an
unusual setting. The attempt is to catch the fish rather than mastering the art
of angling! Torrence says that one can produce new ideas without being able to
express one’s ideas verbally or visually. Inspiration, Intuition and
imagination produce great things especially in Art and Literature.
Bill Gates, the Software king was a Harvard
University drop-out. The whizkid began tinkering with tinny computers when he
was a 13 years lad and developed a language programming packet for the MITS – ALTAIR, 8000 (the
world’s first single board micro computers)
as a boy. He was called “Brash Bill”.
M.S. ROWLING conceived the idea of writing
the world-famous Harry Potter series of three children’s novels while on a
train journey from Manchester to London. Book shops had to be kept open round
the clock, the staff being engaged on shift system to meet the phenomenal
demand for the books.
It was not by laborious schooling but by a
flash of intuition that Charles Kettering invented the electric starter in
place of the tedious process of getting a car started, Henry Ford figured out
the assembly line technique and made possible to mass produce automobiles,
Lewis Waterman learnt to put ink in the pen instead of dipping the pen in the
ink-well, and Elisha Otir, inventor of the elevator indirectly created the
city sky-line.
How can we disbelieve when it was claimed by
Pothana, the author of Bhagavatam, and Thyagaraja the great musician that God
Himself induced them to produce their immortal works? Can we dismiss them as
sufferers from hallucinations or intellectual overheating?