Reuben Mondejar

“I can’t make a difference”

When you constrict your personality and your outside world, you lose your natural creativity, for being creative means being able to look every-where and consider everything.

“I should be practical, reasonable, and rational”

“Want to play?” This is an everyday question between children, but a strange one between adults. Adults don’t play. Oh, they may think they do when they say they play tennis or golf or chess or cards, but they really don’t, at least not in the imagination-driven way children do. For the child, life is an adventure, where anything is possible, everything is conceivable. The adult, on the other hand, will usually refuse to waste time on anything that doesn’t give results toward a specific goal. Kids do something else that adults don’t; they practice their creativity all the time. It’s called play.

The expansion of personal freedom

With no more invisible barriers to the worry about, we are now free to look at the world around us with unbiased eyes. Try it. Start to make a “why can’t it be this way” list, things that you’ve grown used to that could in fact be different. It’s not important that your list be practical, or marketable. Try keeping a wish list of things you believe should be different, much like a child does when they ask why something doesn’t exist. Why doesn’t a certain restaurant deliver? Why don’t they make that style of clothes for men? Add to it. Keep it going. Why can’t something be different? Why does it have to be the way it is? “Why can’t” are two little words, yet words which regularly pass the lips only of children and childlike adults.

The immense value of being able to see other perspectives

We said at the start of this book that to be creative one needed to be able to see other points of view and other perspectives. That’s the theory and that’s the easy part. The difficult part is liberating one’s mind sufficiently in order to be able to see those perspectives consistently.

What invisible defense shields

We all live behind invisible defense shields. They’re the shields which protect us from potential slights and attacks upon our egos. Some of us have more extensive and elaborate shield systems than others. Keeping them up requires effort and there are times when we do let them, at least partially, down. When, where and for how long depends on the person we’re with and the situation we’re in, or perhaps how much we’ve had to drink. It’s fear which forces us to live behind shields, and it’s fear which stops us from becoming more creative. In order to become more creative, we have to let down our defenses.

“I don’t want to have to get to know you”

The surrealist artist Andre Breton said: “It is at the movies that the only absolutely modern mystery is celebrated.” You enter the theater willingly, eagerly. You look around you, and are aware of everything except the huge rectangular screen in front of you. The moment the lights are lowered, however, that screen will become your whole universe. What you see, in bursts of light and darkness, you will accept as life, the images will reach out and capture you completely.

“I can conform from nine-to-five and still be a nonconformist”

The question is what kind of nonconformist will you be? You’ll probably succeed in being a nonconformist among conformists, but you may not measure up very well among real nonconformists. It’s the same thing with creativity. In every family, in every circle of friends, in every office, someone is more creative than everyone else. Whether that person is indeed highly creative, or only slightly creative depends on whom you compare them to.

“Decent, sensible people will agree with me”

The preceding illustrations are examples of how we perceive things. In the first illustration you see either a young woman or a very old one. It doesn’t matter which you see first. What’s interesting is that when you see one you lock onto it and have difficulty seeing the other, even though you know it exists.

Suppress all provocative thoughts

The highly creative person also sits on the edge of the world, but he or she wouldn’t have it any other way. There is an advantage to sitting on the edge of the world. You get to see what’s on both sides. Remember that creativity is the ability to see the things that everyone else sees and more; the ability to see other perspectives; the ability to go beyond the limits which society says you should respect; the ability to enter and leave the worlds of reality and imagination without a passport.

“I’m not afraid of other people”

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not at all afraid and 10 terrified, rate your fear of the following: n n nDeath n n nSnakes n n nRidicule n n nIllness n n nFailure n n nHigh places n n nOther people n n nMice or rats n n nThe unknown n n nDarkness. n n n nIf you’re like most people, you will say that you are most afraid of death and illness and least afraid of darkness and other people.