maandag 17 januari 2005

How to be creative

Following up on my previous post about creativity, I read a ChangeThis Manifesto by Hugh MacLeod, How To Be Creative. Here are some of the quotes that made me think...


"Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted.


The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.


Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina. Put the hours in; do it for long enough and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually.


Being good at anything is like figure skating—the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy. But it never is easy. Ever. Thatʼs what the stupidly wrong people conveniently forget.


Itʼs NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity—that hurts FAR more than any failure.


Every kid underestimates his competition, and overestimates his chances. Every kid is a sucker for the idea that thereʼs a way to make it without having to do the actual hard work.


The most important thing a creative person can learn, professionally, is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.


In order to navigate The New Realities you have to be creative—not just within your particular profession, but in EVERYTHING. Your way of looking at the world will need to become ever more fertile and original.


Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.


The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.


Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.


Trying to create when you donʼt feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation. Itʼs not really connecting, itʼs just droning on like an old, drunken barfly.


Put your whole self into it, and you will find your true voice. Hold back and you wonʼt. Itʼs that simple.


Intimacy doesnʼt scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon."

3 opmerkingen:

  1. I agree that basicly setting goals for yourself is not enough (it's a good first step though), you must activly pursue your goal with pasion and creativity in order to achive it. Taking external factors in count (time, money, resources), it's hard to deny that some people will have a harder time reaching their goal than others, but even the "lucky" people must have a read drive from inside to achive it.

    "The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does."

    Does everyone who changed the world really had the intention to do so, was it really their primary goal? I think most people just want to achive some peronal goal and by accident their achivement was so extraordinary that it had an effect on the rest of the world. Think about all of the "garage"-inventions made over time.

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  2. Agree that some innovations were unintended consequences. But I also so think that most of the garage inventions were the result of a strong desire to change things or to do so something new.

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  3. Isn't this desire to change things (or do something new) the cornerstone of evolution? I'm getting off-topic, this isn't a topic about Darwin and his theory ;)

    Back on topic, I totally agree that most people who change things in this world (or in their life) are usually creative and have a different view on problems (challenges?). Making a differance is like getting off the highway and following a diffent (unpaved) road to find better route.

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