Road To Creativity

The formula was created by John W. Haefele and described in his book, "Creativity and Innovation". Don Fabun started playing around with the formula and come up with another formula. A(n)+ B(n)<---> C! The small (n) is placed at the top right of the letters A and B. The small(n) represents any number or condition of the item that A or B represent. The double arrow <---> represents that the process is reversible. C is the result of combining A + B. The exclamation mark ! represents an original.

If you combine any number of A or B together you will get C. If you take C apart you will get A and B. Don Fabun believed that his formula described the creative act and the creative process was really simple. You just put two or more items in juxta position to yield an original combination.

This made me think of the term reverse engineering (RE). Here is the definition from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves taking something apart and analyzing its workings in detail to be used in maintenance, or to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing without coping anything from the original."

Have You Ever Thought Of This?

* All the literature that has ever been written in the modern English language consists of patterns of only 26 letters.

* All the paintings ever made are patterns of only three primary colors.

* All the music ever written consists of patterns of no more than 12 notes.

* All the arithmetical expressions we know of consist of only 10 symbols.

* And for the vast computations of digital computers, everything is made up of patterns of only two components.

* Thus, whenever we speak of something as being "new" we are really talking about original patterns of already existing components.

Don Fabun - Three Roads To Awareness

Don Fabun believes that each person that successfully completes the creative act does most of these seven steps.

1. Desire
2. Preparation
3. Manipulation
4. Incubation
5. Intimation
6. Illumination
7. Verification

Can it be that simple? Only seven steps down the road to creativity? Is this the road map?

I have changed five words describing the steps, because I feel they work better for me. These are the words I have selected that represent the process a person goes through when they have completed a creative action.

The Seven Steps To Creativity:
1. Motivation
2. Preparation
3. Change
4. Gestation
5. Intuition
6. Eureka
7. Verification

Let's take a look at each of these steps.

Don Fabun used the word Desire for the first step. I prefer to use the word Motivation for the first step.

For me Desire isn't a strong enough word for the first step down the road to creativity. It isn't an action word it is too passive.

According to Encarta, World English Dictionary, Desire:

1. Wish for - To want something very strongly.
2. Find sexually attractive - To want to have sexual relations with somebody.
3. Request - To Wish for and request something.
4. Craving - A Wish, craving, or longing for something.
5. Something wished for - Something that or somebody who is wished for.
6. Sexual craving - A strong wish for and request something.

I feel you need Motivation and a reason Why. That is why I selected Motivation for the first step down the road to creativity. Motivation is a strong action word.

According to Encarta, Motivation:

1. Giving of a reason to act - The act of giving somebody a reason or incentive to do something.
2. Enthusiasm - A feeling of interest or enthusiasm that makes somebody want to do something, or something that causes such a feeling.
3. Reason - A reason for doing something or behaving in some way.
4. Forces determining behavior - The biological, emotional, cognitive, or social forces that activate and direct behavior.

"Action is the real measure of intelligence." - Napoleon Hill

"Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats." - Sue Grafton

"The value of an idea lies in the using of it." - Thomas A. Edison

"If you don't execute your ideas, they die." - Roger von Oech

Some people can come up with a good idea, but just don't act on it. They lack the motivation to get started - seems like having the idea was enough for them. You have to start the process to creativity with Motivation. If you don't start and act the process stops and never gets started.

Don Fabun used the word Preparation for the second step. I like this word and think it is a good word for the second step.

According to Encarta, Preparation:

1. Preparing something or somebody - The work or planning involved in making something or somebody ready or in putting something together in advance.
2. Readiness - A state of readiness.
3. Preparatory Measure - Something done in advance in order to be ready for a future event.
4. Mixture - A substance that is made for a specific purpose by combining various ingredients.

"Research is creating new knowledge." Neil Armstrong

How is the idea going to be carried out? Some brainstorming may be in order to figure out: the how, what, where and when.

"Research is to see what everybody else has seen and to think what nobody else has thought." - William Plomer

"Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action." - Napoleon Hill

Don Fabun used the word Manipulation for the third step. I don't care for this word. I am going to use Change for the third step.

According to Encarta, Manipulation, Manipulate:

1. To Handle something -
2. Control somebody or something deviously -
3. To change or present something in a way that is false but personally advantageous -

According to Encarta, Change:

1. Become or make something different -
2. To substitute or replace something -
3. Pass from one state to another -
4. Remove and replace something -
5. Making or becoming something different -
6. Variance from routine -
7. Transition from something -

"An idea is a feat of association". - Robert Frost

Creativity involves making new combinations. Play with new combinations of words, images and ideas.

"Abstract ideas are the patterns two or more memories have in common. They are born whenever someone realizes that similarity ... Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they always have been done". - Rudolf Flesch

"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress." -Charles Kettering

"Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed." - Joseph Addison

"All good ideas arrive by chance." - Max Ernst

Don Fabun used the word Incubation for the fourth step. Not a bad word to describe the fourth step - Gestate can also be used.

According to Encarta, Incubation:

1. Gradual development - The slow development of something, especially through thought and planning.
2. Gradually bring something into being - To form or develop something, such as a plan or an idea, slowly and quietly over a period of time.

According to Encarta, Gestation:

1. Develop ideas in the mind - To develop in the mind, or allow an idea or plan to develop in the mind.

Sometimes a solution doesn't appear at once or isn't working completely. The results aren't there. It is best to step back, take a break, do something different. Let our subconscious mind take over...

"When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go... The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!" - Judy Collins

"Inspiration is something that tends to capture you rather than you capture it." - Joan Armatrading

"As I went along, thinking nothing in particular, only looking at things around me and following the progress of the seasons, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza at once." - A.E.Housman

"One morning, after having slept poorly, I woke with a start and witnessed, as from a seat in a theater three acts which brought to life an epoch and characters about which I had no documentary information and which I regarded moreover as forbidding. Long after, I succeeded in writing the play." - Jean Cocteau

Don Fabun used the word Intimation for the fifth step. This isn't a bad word, but I decided to use the word Intuition for the fifth step.

According to Encarta, Intimation:

1. Hint - A subtle hint or sign of something.
2. Announcement - A formal announcement of something.

According to Encarta, Intuition:

1. Knowing something instinctively - The state of being aware of or knowing something without having to discover or perceive it, or the ability to do this.
2. Instinctive belief - Something known or believed instinctively, without actual evidence for it.
3. Immediate knowledge - Immediate knowledge of something.

There is a feeling that we are on to something, that the solution is just around the corner.

"The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it". - Elbert Hubbard

Don Fabun used the word Illumination for the sixth step. I like Eureka, so I am calling the sixth step Eureka.

According to Encarta, Illumination:

1. Act of illumination - To make something visible or bright.
2. Clarification and explanation - The process of clarifying or explaining something.
3. Enlightenment - Intellectual or spiritual enlightenment.

According to Encarta, Eureka:

1. Used to express delight on finding, discovering or solving something or finally succeeding in doing something.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche said, "The notion of revelation describes the conditions quite simply; by which I mean that something profoundly convulsive and disturbing suddenly becomes visible and audible... One hears - one does not seek; one takes - one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes out like lightning."

"Somebody once asked Anton Bruckner: "Master, how, when, where did you think of the divine motif of your Ninth Symphony?" Well, it was like this," Bruckner replied. "I walked up the Kahlenberg and when it got hot and I got hungry, I sat down by a little brook and unpacked my Swiss cheese. And just as I open the greasy paper, that darn tune pops into my head!" - Anton Bruckner

Don Fabun used the word Verification for the seventh step. I agree Verification is the perfect word for the seventh step.

According to Encarta, Verification:

1. Establishment of truth - The establishment of the truth or correctness of something by investigation or evidence.
2. Evidence - The evidence that proves something true or correct.
3. Confirmatory evidence - Evidence or testimony that confirms something.
 
 

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense". - Mark Twain

"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous and conflicting information". - Winston Churchill

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong". - Ella Fitzgerald

"The bars of West Hollywood and New York are awash with people throwing their lives away in the desperate hope of finding a shortcut, any shortcut. "

"And a lot of them aren't even young anymore; their B-plans having been washed away by Vodka & Tonics years ago. Meanwhile their competition is at home, working their asses off." - Hugh Macleod

"There is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly". - Kingman Brewster