Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 42
The short answer is quite a bit.
I dedicated the most recent radio episode to an exploration of his ideas about how to be creative and ran out of time.
Here’s a couple of highlights revisited:
He was clear that his extraordinary work was born from his remarkable curiosity for the natural world, for mechanical workings, for how all of his experiences were part of the same unified whole. And of course we are all born with remarkable curiosity, as just one manifestation of our natural creative genius.
“Why?” Yeah? Don’t children say “Why?” a dozen times a day. Well, let’s fuel that curiosity, let’s ask them why, talk about why, explore why.
And what questions are you asking yourself about why you feel the way you do, or why you act like that in certain situations, or why the folks across the way act like you but have very different beliefs?
Da Vinci was a habitual journalist; over 7,000 pages have been found. Those pages are filled with sketches and early observations, half formed ideas and questions to answer. We now have research to support that writing down what you are thinking—not key padding it, but pencil or pen in hand—will help reveal new aspects of what you are thinking about. And attempting a visual image of your thoughts is often even more productive in advancing your thinking.
The way I get to keep re-charging my curiosity is by spending as much time with my grandchildren as I can—they are 10, 8, and 6 and they are curious about everything around them. Can you settle in and play with some children? It is very likely to have a creative boost, and show you ways to follow your curious mind.
Another way to learn from Da Vinci and grow your creative curiosity is to make a point of reading outside your usual interests. You love mysteries and have three books on your bed side ready to read? How about interrupting that flow with a biography of Cezanne instead, or a book about how fungi grow, or on the history of Sweden during the Renaissance?
And finally, there is the language that has captured my curious spirit and behaviors since I was nine and heard the phrase in a song one Sunday morning “I wonder as I wander out under the sky”; I have been wondering while wandering all my life.
Come join me.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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