Thoughtwrestling requires plenty of good information from diverse sources. The Internet is a key part of your overall information repository. You know this, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article. The Internet is the essential online library for a thoughtwrestler. But there are ways to make it work for you to build your thoughtwrestling skills. You can also train your mind to do better. You can build your own creative infrastructure to avoid problems like writer’s block.
Thoughtwrestling is like creating magic routines
Let’s look at the methods of a successful professional magician as a model for the process of generating ideas and solving problems. A great book about creativity and idea development is Advantage Play by magician David Ben. Ben describes techniques of magic (illusion, sleight of hand, etc.) to provide ideas about how business managers can be more creative, solve problems, and sell with flair. He uses the example of one of his mentors, Stewart James, as a means to demonstrate these ideas.
Stewart James created an amazing number of magic routines during his life:
Stewart was the most prolific inventor of magic in the twentieth century. Where most magicians invent a handful of magic routines during the course of their lives, Stewart created over one thousand. His prodigious output has been recorded in two massive publications totaling over 2,700 pages.
Put another way, imagine creating over 1,000 excellent blog posts, articles, images, podcasts, or video blogs. Or, considering how science and technology have advanced over the years, multiply that by ten!
Stewart James used creative infrastructure to help create magic routines. David Ben refers to creative infrastructure as:
… an organized repository of personal and professional resources that creates an inventory of experience from which one can generate ideas and evaluate options.
Creative infrastructure includes at three sub-systems:
- A mental and physical state that fosters creativity
- A system for storing, retrieving, and sharing information
- A system that encourages mentorship
The mental and physical state that fosters creativity
Stewart James believed in the power of positive thinking in order to reach the best mental state for generating ideas and solving problems. When we have a positive attitude towards creative work, we believe the following:
a) All answers or solutions pre-exist in this world
b) The creative process is a journey to a destination in the mind
c) The creative process is a partnership with the mind
d) Creative dialog (or creativity) is not limited to certain times of day
e) Being an independent thinker means you will have to face and move past criticism
The system for storing, retrieving, and sharing information
In his day, Stewart James was forced to use pencil, paper, and elbow grease to store, index and retrieve information. Today we have many electronic means to do this. They can be grouped into four categories:
- Community Sharing – groups share and discuss information about topics of interest
- Purposeful Sharing - sharing links to documents or topics that interest you in a more public forum
- Reading blogs – there are blogs on every topic under the sun (like this one)
- Article Directories – article directories are static repositories of articles
The system that encourages mentorship
Social media provides access to millions of people, mainly through the types of communities and the types of websites listed above. Fictional (and real!) magicians often have apprentices or students (or padawans, if you’re a Star Wars fan).
Teachers are invaluable.
Today’s social media provide many ways for teachers and students to interact. Many teachers remember the value that they gained when they were students and many of them are eager, willing, and able to share knowledge.
Using creative infrastructure for better thoughtwrestling
We’re developing the art and science of thoughtwrestling on the fly with this blog. We’re going to explore the three subsystems of creative infrastructure in subsequent posts. Keep reading!
For now, if you have any questions, why not leave a comment below or send us an E-Mail?
Note: this post was inspired by two other posts on creative infrastructure at Broadcasting Brain.
Related posts:
Enjoyed this post – outside of the box. But I also think the creative process goes beyond the mind into what emerges from the intuitive impulse to be purposeful and trigger positive change. Glad I found you!
Hello Judy. No doubt that action and intent are important when it comes to making new things. The ideas from this post, as used by Stewart James, represent a way to provide a set of tools or support system to help people do good work. Stewart James used it to create magic tricks: the same concepts can applied to virtually any creative endeavour.
I have a difficult time thinking in terms of systems and infrastructure when it comes to creativity. I think I have a kneejerk negative response to what sounds like a formalization of something that to me is “natural,” or something like that. But when I question that response I know it is a bias and that leads me to wonder why it exists.
For me, I believe it is simply that when I was younger there was a prevailing feeling that creativity was natural, spontaneous and somehow the antithesis of structure etc.
However, when I think about what I do I realize I do have a structure and a system, I simply don’t think of them in those terms. But a car still exists whether you have named it “car” or not. And understanding what your system and structure are allows you to understand how you are creative and can help facilitate your creativity. Seeing how others go about it also helps because you can find ways that can help your own.
And it helps to know what your biases are and why you have them in order to get past them.
There are definitely people who take the approach that creativity is somewhat mysterious, fickle, etc. A number of professional writers seem to feel that way and Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk seemed to describe that way of thinking. There’s another school of thought that says that doing creative work can be supplemented through habits, tools, and systems, like the Stewart James material seems to suggest.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes (hm, reminds me of yesterday’s interview for some reason…) but I tend to lean more towards the idea that some self-knowledge and useful tools can be a tremendous help. That’s what my own limited experience suggests.
That is what makes this blog interesting, I think. Different approaches to the same thing. I think that is where it is most helpful: seeing another view or approach and looking to see if it can be incorporated in what we do.
I think self-knowledge is hugely important. I think when I entered the world of business (corporations etc.) my instinctive view began changing because I could see the value of tools and systems etc.
Plus everyone enjoys a good – ahem – disagreement.