How to be Creative: A Passport to Creativity
By Peter Harris
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About this ebook
This 'passport to creativity' is a short illustrated guide to creating entirely new things, making creative improvements to anything, and solving all kinds of problems. It uses the 'IdeaTree', a five-part colour-coded diagram of process which enables all stages to be clearly visualised - and applied.
The IdeaTree diagram is based on the process philosophy developed by Peter Harris in his MA thesis in Philosophy, 'Process and Inquiry', finished in 1995. Since then he has gone on to become the builder of Cafe Eutopia, a fantasy author, inventor, sculptor, bookbinder, etc. So, Peter knows the process of creation from the inside, as well as theoretically, and uses some examples from his life to help explain the theory.
The IdeaTree diagram throws light on all areas of life, since life IS process. It also makes it clear just how people who specialise in the creative 'zone', can fit in with the other essential aspects of life and work, in a dynamic balance. Creative people do not have to be isolated and frustrated! They have an essential place in the cycle of growth of any group, society, business, or nation. Now more than ever, as our global economy becomes more and more dynamic and fast-evolving, the creative zone is in hot demand. Yet there is still fear and suspicion of creativity and the people who go in for it.
This book aims to help change that by showing that creativity is an essential aspect of all life, yet it does not exist in mysterious isolation, but is simply the second of the four phases of all process: Input, Novelty, Reaction and Output.(The fifth part of the IdeaTree diagram is the 'Status Quo', made up of all the successful cycles of creation which have happened already. The Status Quo 'feeds' the process, while the new cycles are emerging.)
These big concepts are distilled into this clear little book, making a deceptively simple tool for revolutionising the way we think - and create.
Peter Harris
I joined GRID-Arendal as Managing Director in 2014. I am a native of the USA, citizen of Australia and resident of Norway; I describe myself as a “professional foreigner. I am a graduate of the University of Washington (Seattle USA), completed a PhD at the University of Wales (Swansea UK), married an Australian and have 3 children. I have worked in the field of marine geology and science management for over 30 years and published over 100 scientific papers. I taught marine geology at the University of Sydney and conducted research on UK estuaries, the Great Barrier Reef, the Fly River Delta (Papua New Guinea) and Antarctica. I worked for 20 years for Australia’s national geoscience agency as a scientist and manager. In 2009 I was appointed a member of the group of experts for the United Nations World Ocean Assessment. Apart from managing all of GRID-Arendal’s amazing activities, my interests include new methods for the conduct of environmental assessments (the expert elicitation method) and the use of multivariate statistics and geomorphology to provide tools to manage the global ocean environment. I also enjoy sailing and playing the bagpipes.
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Book preview
How to be Creative - Peter Harris
HOW TO BE CREATIVE
- A
PASSPORT TO
Creativity
The Beauty of New Ideas
Book Two of the
IdeaTree Seed Series
by Peter Harris
Copyright © Peter Harris August 2011
Illustrations, cover by Peter Harris © 2011, 2012
Second Edition April 2012
Additions August 2012
Smashwords edition
Published by
Eutopia Press
CONTENTS
Introduction
A Declaration of creativity
The Creative Universal Flux
Be happy - Whatever your Home Zone, You are Needed!
The First Phase Of Creativity: Openness (Blue Zone)
Before you start creating – the inevitable ‘But is this really the time for it?’ objection.
The ‘But we can’t afford it’ objection.
The Power Of Not Knowing
The power of Presuppositions, Assumptions and Rules
How to unblinker our perceptions
Chemicals, other activities
Mental exercises to ‘unjam’
Get out of the verbal bubble!
Look for ‘bad’ facts too
The Second Phase – The Green Zone Of The Green Zone
The flash of inspiration – relax and let it come!
Suspending disbelief in Spirit, the Higher Mind
The power of ‘Faith’ – the inventor must BELIEVE a Solution IS Out There!
The power of Never Reasoning from the Past
(How to Refute the Fallacy of Induction once and for all)
No Place Like Home Zone, so enjoy your ‘babies’ before they leave
The inevitable ‘But How’ objections
The Third Phase – The Yellow Zone Of Creativity – Critique, Choosing, Planning
Friendly Green-zone critique first!
Boldly winnowing the Good to get to the Great
Being a Yellow-zone Creator – creativity by
simply combining.
One problem plus one problem equals two solutions. An example of simple recombination.
Google it, Stupid!
The Fourth Phase – The Red Phase Of Creativity
The (rapid, ‘quick and dirty’) working prototype.
Plan B, and C… and D
‘Back of the envelope’ – Kitchen table’ - RAPID prototyping -‘Fail Forward – Fast.’
Red Phase Of Your Reading This Book
Suggested headings for applying it.
REFERENCES and recommended books on creativity and process
Introduction
This little book is your Passport to the Green Zone, the Dreaming and Creativity Zone of process.
First, a bit of philosophy - don’t worry, it’s all simple to apply, and the one diagram of all process, the IdeaTree diagram, shows it all clearly, so you can apply the four-phase process concept in the same way to any problem or issue.
Here goes (skipping detailed arguments for what I am asserting. This is a ‘suck it and see’ book! So:
Everything is process; even a rock slowly changes.
But only living things evolve, develop, reverse the general law of entropy which says that things left to themselves become more and more chaotic, less and less ordered, like a rock slowly disintegrating or an egg breaking.
Is there a simple