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By all measures, you would consider me to be someone involved in the creative pursuits. I am also a writer and commentator on many things, both on this blog and off. So I do not broach the subject of originality lightly.
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Compassion is a deep awareness of, and a sympathy with, someone else’s suffering. That is the traditional definition, but really compassion is much broader than that. Compassion is an innate sense of empathy with things and people outside of ourselves — not just their suffering but their feelings, their thinking, and their situation. To be compassionate is to see, feel, and sense beyond yourself. It is this broader sense of compassion that truly makes us human. What would such a thing have to do with the ballet of Swan Lake and musical fountains? I thought you’d never ask.
On New Year’s eve, I was at the Festival City mall in Dubai. There was revelry in the cold winter air and good cheer amongst the hundreds who had chosen to bring in the New Year in the outdoor areas of that complex, on the banks of the creek. After staring into the distant glimmer of fireworks that exploded over the city at the stroke of midnight, we walked along the little canal that is woven into the promenade, by the many busy restaurants there. We found a new sight to greet us at the central area outside the main atrium. There, next to the water of the canal, was a beautiful fountain bathed in light and colour. Its million spinnerets wove a fleeting web of water that clung longingly to the night air before falling to the Earth, and all of them danced to the tune of music that filled the air. A hundred dazzled pairs of eyes looked on in amazement. I was one of them. Then the fountain went quiet and as it sprang back into colour, the Swan’s Theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake swelled through the gathering.
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Just a few days ago I was telling you how procrastination is your greatest enemy, and now I have decided to reveal to you how procrastinating can sometimes be a good thing. Before you card-carrying members of the angry mob attack with pitchforks and torches, let me explain. It’s not that I am a fence-sitter or a turn-coat by nature, but unfortunately, this universe of ours is not black and white. It is instead a distinct shade of gray. All things are good in moderation, and procrastination is no exception.
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All the ideas and brainstorming in the world can’t help you if you don’t take action and do something about them. In any process of creation your greatest enemy is always procrastination. If you ever wish to be someone who actually achieves something, rather than one of the many who had all the best ideas, your greatest skill will need to be fighting your own procrastinating mind.
Be thankful that the world and human life, doesn’t actually function on logic. No sir it doesn’t. Look at a newspaper, any newspaper, and you will see hundreds of examples of brute force winning out over logic, so would it be so wrong to channel some of this barbaric brute force in a positive manner for once and use it to fight all that flawless logic that’s holding you back from world domination? I think not. So here are some fights you need to pick to get going and do wonders:
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If your first reaction to reading the title of this piece was, “Since when are dictionaries brainstorming tools?!”, you obviously haven’t heard the news. Dictionaries are in fact excellent brainstorming tools, and I’ve been using them in that capacity for years; They are an essential part of my creative ideas arsenal. To find out more about the specifics I suggest you go over and read my article describing some techniques for brainstorming with a dictionary.
What it comes down to is the three Ss, and for all you fellow graphics nuts out there, no, it has nothing to do with Sub Surface Scattering. Old-fashioned paper dictionaries have three important properties, or features if you like, that make them more effective brainstorming tools. They work better because they are:
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brainstorming n. intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas
That’s what my dictionary says, and it is absolutely right. Brainstorming is always a discussion, but what gets most people confused is that they often need to generate ideas on their own, without the benefit of discussion with another human being. Creative pursuits can be very solitary activities. In fact, they often have to be for best results, especially in the early stages. So how do you generate ideas and discuss these ideas with yourself? In case you are convinced that your creativity requires a healthy helping of multiple personality disorder to survive, fear not, because there are healthier ways to light those creative sparks. One method I always like to use when brainstorming for new ideas is flipping through a dictionary.
To most people a dictionary is a dry and boring book. It has a lot of interesting words in it, but no gripping plot or characters to speak of. How can you possibly be inspired to create by such a regimental piece of literature? To answer that question, here a few dictionary techniques I use when I am looking for solution to a creative problem:
If all that sounded mysterious and cryptic, lets move on to the specifics of each of these techniques. To help make things clearer, let me take on the hypothetical challenge of braistorming for an image or illustration idea for the word brainstorm. Using these very techniques that I am about to describe, lets see what ideas we can come up with.
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