creativity
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The study of parts
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1 min read
Picture upon picture, piece upon piece, we dance with the smaller units to draw clarity into the bigger puzzle. But it’s no wonder few people actually want to deal with the micro-units. All the details do is drive the layman insane. Generalists suffer at the hands of decision fatigue. The subtleties inspire the specialists to…
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To dare is to blog
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2 min read
A blog helps you solidify your thinking. But the practice of blogging is both a freedom and a constraint. It’s liberating to say whatever you want, even if no one reads it. How dare someone discovers you! At the same time, there’s a fear that what’s written isn’t polished enough to be published. But that’s…
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‘We are told stories as children to help us bridge the abyss between waking and sleeping’
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1 min read
We are told stories as children to help us bridge the abyss between waking and sleeping. We tell stories to our own children for the same purpose. When I find myself in danger — caught on a stuck ski-lift in a blizzard — I immediately start telling myself stories. I tell myself stories when I…
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Art never sleeps
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1 min read
Just because art is based on nothingness doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Without our crayons, we are bound to get more lost than found. Art is the outward release of inward expression and vice versa. It is a psychological thriller for the creator, reminding them that life begins again and again. A kind of wonder drug—art…
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Thinking in the cracks
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1 min read
We think in the cracks all the time. We fill in the blank spaces throughout our day with either fodder or deliberation. The observer internalizes the outside world to create meaning. Not every thought, of course, is worth marveling. Sometimes thoughts are just thoughts — they are arbitrary with no bearing on reality. Just as…
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Amid convention and rebellion, the artist vacillates from Jeckyl to Hyde. The artist uses cash to pay for the sex — the stuff they wish they were doing for a living. Vivian Maier was a babysitter who in her off-hours roamed the streets of Chicago with her 35mm color camera capturing beautiful everyday moments. Maier didn’t…
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Why you should build your own blog
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2 min read
The best thing about blogs is that they offer alternative thoughts. Unlike traditional publishers, a blogger is typically an individual who presents a unique, honest, and fresh opinionated perspective unmoored from the rules and requirements of journalistic prose. Blog posts are typically shorter, lighter, and more digestible. They can get to the point in just…
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Creativity is a passport to freedom
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1 min read
The pen, a camera, a blog—all our passports to freedom. They are tools for noticing, interpretation, and creative expression. They digest the world only to spit it back out, after a few edits. In many ways, these items are also tools for self-preservation. The notepad may not make Maslow’s hierarchy of essential needs such as…
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Notice the light inside
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1 min read
The artist over the critic, the maker over the collector, the writer over the reader. Once we become creators rather than passive consumers and dive deep in, we preserve our own history. Ignoring our calling to shake off a responsibility merely postpones an itch that intensifies with time. Unlike robots, humans are light inside. We…
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Against playacting
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1 min read
It takes an anarchic mindset to disrupt the status quo. The freedom from playacting the role society enlists us permits the most creative thinking and endeavors. Do you think Steve Jobs would’ve created the Mac growing up on the East Coast? No, the West Coast was where all the wackies and hippies lived. Once we…
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Thinking in fragments
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1 min read
Half-baked ideas are valuable ideas. Messy minds and messy processes generate new ways of thinking. We create through the imperfect. “A small drop of ink makes thousands, perhaps millions think,” wrote businessman and self-help book author William Clement Stone. The more ideas we have, the more we have to play with. Brainstorming is, therefore, a democratic…
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Revolutionizing tomorrow
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1 min read
Enough schooling will kick the creativity out of you. What it doesn’t teach you is how to push ideas to completion. That comes within. The interested artist stops for nobody even if that means painting from memory, not life. Hyper-vigilant to blind spots, the curious maker is also looking to out-innovate themselves. Doing what your…