Creativity

Welcome to Creativity Class!

bclemes — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:10:37 +0000

Here you will find archives from old classes and prompts for new posts. During the semester you should write at least 5 posts and 5 comments on the posts of others. You may react to a class exercise, discusssion, presentation, or lecture; or you may enclose a link and write about it. A rubric for how your posts will be graded is included in the syllabus.
For your first post, you may wish to write about the suggestion for Blog Choice 1:

Look at the websites in the first section of Moodle, and write a blog entry on your use of one of them.

Your Creative Ideas

bclemes — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:47:02 +0000

Here is a place to post some of your creative ideas, now that we are at the end of the course. You can suggest hands-on activities, recommend readings or movies or websites, or write about anything you like. These ideas can substitute for earlier Logs or furnish you with some extra credit.

bclemes — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:33:49 +0000

I am adding this post for “senior cadet.”

Interdisciplinary thinking is something new to the maritime industry. In years past, you were either deck side or an engineer. Before you could start your academy experience, you had to decide on whether you wanted to take the red pill or the blue pill. Your path would be narrow with few exits, much like a bowling alley with the inflatable bumpers installed. But times change and with them come paradigm shifts. The transportation industry has changed concurrently with the changes in technology and communications. The maritime industry is now more closely knit. The success of any one ship or company relies heavily on both ship and shore personnel. To meet the new demands within the maritime industry, CMA now offers non-license track majors. These new majors offer cadets shore side careers that are now critical to the overall success of the maritime industry. This shift in industry thinking is supported by Captain Bolton. He has commented both publicly and privately to receptive cadets. His experience and views regarding this shift in industry have been purposely shared in an effort to bring the CMA community closer together. Having closer knit between the licensed and non-licensed majors can only prepare cadets for the current trends in maritime business.

bclemes — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:36:23 +0000

What other comments do you have about Chapter 1 categories? Here is the place to discuss the 5-step creative process, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the creative personality, wind vs. sweat, and anything else in Chapter 1.

Check out my Slide Show!

bclemes — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:56:49 +0000

What the Bleep, Part II

bclemes — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:53:56 +0000

Though the second part of the What the Bleep film contains some dubious assertions, it still provides some memorable visuals that help us digest the course material. During our discussion of states, we mentioned the three most common (waking, sleeping, and deep sleep), but there are actually as many states as there are neuropeptides to cause them. The movie shows such altered states as lust, intoxication, and self-disgust (“I hate you! You’re fat!”). In all such states our perception of reality is altered, just as it is with LSD or depression. Managing creativity has to do with managing states (Chapter 3) because, as the movie points out, we are emotional beings. We can’t just make the “decision to be creative” (Sternberg) if our emotions are getting in the way and choreographing different realities. (Remember, in the film, the woman who has a cell saying, “Help me suffer”? Do you know self-styled drama queens who have an identity built around suffering? The film says they are addicted to the repetition of the chemical that says, “Poor me.”)

Much of this part of the film is based on sound experimental psychology. Yes, we strengthen neural connections when we repeat a behavior and it becomes a habit. That is why habits (like drinking or suffering) are hard to get rid of. Yes, addictive substances make little locks that hook onto the little keyholes of the brain cells. Many addictive substances, for instance, have a little lock that fits into the same receptors as dopamine: the brain’s “feel-good” chemical. And, yes, we have a problem of seeing the present through the lens of past experience. If I get my writing rejected 11 times by a commercial publisher, I associate sending writing to a commercial publisher with pain. I want to avoid pain, so I avoid sending my material out, and my creative success is blocked. And, yes, the brain works on associations. That is why it can be so hard to get rid of blocks and fear. Your brain associates creative expression with some past pain and doesn’t want to move forward, even when your conscious mind does. The two impulses duke it out, and you are at a stalemate. I liked the graphic representation of the little red and blue blobs (fighting cells, neuropeptides, and/or impulses) to remind us of how we are blocked.

Any more comments on the relation between the movie and the text or classwork? Do you think I should show the movie if this class gets scheduled again?

“What the Bleep Do We Know” and My Book

bclemes — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:57:23 +0000

Thank you to the four students who insisted, more than once, that I should show the “Bleep” film in class. I had forgotten how it clarifies some of the denser philosophical matter in the textbook, Creative Synergy.

First, the movie mentions going “down the rabbit hole” as a metaphor for unerstanding the weirdness of quantum reality, and the text draws liberally on quotes from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to illustrate illuminations from the unconscious and superconscious minds. Next, as the narrator explains “We’re all one” and “What thoughts are made of,” there is a swirling net of faces–Indra’s net! And galaxies are shown in circular whirpools, a universal image mentioned in Chapter 9. The film talks about images visualized registering on a PET scan just like images viewed “out there”–a point made during the class presentation on visualization. (Remember those visualized basketball throws?) It presents a study showing the effects of meditation on crime and also mentions the rewiring of the brain during learning and the Flow State. It warns that a thin layer of positive affirmation by itself will not work; we have to dig deeper into our beliefs about our fears and limitations. It shows Masura Emoto’s water crystals, changed by the thoughts directed toward them (Chapter 9). It depicts some experts I quoted: Fred Allan Wolfe (Dr. Quantum) on physics and Amit Goswari on philosophy (Monistic Idealism, Chapter 2). Like Charles Tart it says we walk around hypnotized by our conditioning. It talks about the paradigm shift and the Observer (also called the Witness by Wilber and others).

Now, how can I wrap up all of these separate facts and state, simply and clearly, what all of this blended science and metaphysics and (quite possibly) hocus-pocus have to say about creativity? Basically, we are more creative than we usually know. Just as a quanta can be a wave when unobserved but a particle when observed, we can direct the waves of our wishing and intention in such a focused way that we can make something real happen after we imagine it. Our intention focuses us to make it happen. Our fears block it, but similar waves in the net resonate to it.

Am I making sense? Does this material make sense? What do you think about the links between the book and the film?

Most Important Ideas in the Course

bclemes — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:24:01 +0000

Assuming that you are in my creativity course–what do you think are the most important ideas we have covered so far? How and why? (If you become inspired and write a long post about one idea, that will be enough.)

You and others may be able to use this post as part of your midterm review.

Dreams

bclemes — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:18:03 +0000

When have you had a dream that you felt contained important information? Explain the dream and the circumstances. Will you follow the protocol in the “Dream Waves” article and try to catch a dream that will help your creative process? Explain.

A Broadening Identification

bclemes — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:15:36 +0000

According to Wilber and many other theorists, as we grow and develop, we achieve a broader identification on the spiritual, cognitive, and moral levels. An infant is totally self-absorbed; a young person learns to identify with the family, then the group or country; a person still more highly developed learns to identify with those outside the tribe–perhaps even all other people and even with the whole world or universe.

Explain how a broadening of identification could help your own creative process. Consider all 5 stages: preparation, concentration, incubation, illumination, and verification.