Thinking outside the box is the most powerful thing in the world. But how many people break out of their self-imposed walls in life? Not too many, and with billions everywhere, very few make it out of that box. For anyone willing to read or listen, I’m ready to tell you how to break down those walls and be imaginative. So here’s a little advice to get you started: Stop worrying about what others think and start genuinely thinking for yourself.
Now, I didn’t say don’t take advice if it’s not good, but to get out of “the box,” you have to be genuinely selective, realistically creative, and honest with yourself to the core. Regardless, the best lives follow a self-made pattern, down to relying on intuition primarily on the advice of others “who know better” and being genuinely selective in taking any advice. Indeed, creative and synthetic imagination (in that order) is the engine of life. Creative imagination because there is a better way to do things than the established way waiting inside reality waiting to be discovered, and synthetic imagination because more can be done with what already exists when we look a little beyond productive and creative ways.
When I think of creativity and imagination, the first thing I think of is the word “different”, not the word “better”. Because, “better” is a value judgment that says hey this is better than this and there’s no better way to do it, that’s it, this is where it ends. The word “different” can open up possibilities instead of ending them with value judgments. “This is better than that” makes false assumptions about reality, “we can do this differently” really opens up more possibilities. Different is the open road that leads to new and better places, better is a dead end. So that’s where the creativity really begins, with that distinction. Creativity in those senses is the last “gray area” in realistic thinking, better make “black and white” absolute value judgments like “this is better than that”, when you stifle creativity or improve it, that’s thinking and Unrealistic action, really.
So start thinking about reality in different ways, not much better, because it is through that difference that reality is genuinely improved. For example, I remember when my dad used to take his own car engine apart twice and put it back together before starting it after fixing it to see how he could improve its performance with his knowledge of how to fix a car, and he actually made it run better. , that’s an example of productively different thinking. Buying a “better” new car isn’t always the answer, is it? Sure, this final example is a basic example of how creativity works in reality. But it shows that what I mean by creativity is “different”, never “better”. The new ways of looking at reality are the differences that make things better anyway.