Farther to Go!

Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

Building Blocks of Creativity: Curiosity

by Leave a Comment

If we really want to understand and shape behavior, maybe we should look less at decision-making and more at curiosity. —David Brooks

Having an open mind and being open to experience go hand-in-hand. And if you’re open-minded, you’re curious. You don’t believe that what you know about something—anything—is all there is to know. You want to explore and you want to learn more. You’re not afraid to put yourself in unfamiliar situations or to expose yourself to people and ideas that challenge you or your beliefs.

Curiosity, by its nature, implies uncertainty and ambiguity. Your brain doesn’t like uncertainty, which is why the experience can be uncomfortable. But if you choose comfort and the illusion of certainty (because certainty is an illusion) over curiosity, you’re turning your back on the very characteristics that make humans human.

Besides, curiosity can also be rewarding. Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Why? What Makes Us Curious? says:

[The] lust for knowledge is associated with a pleasurable state, and in our brain activates regions that anticipate rewards.

It makes sense that curiosity activates reward pathways in our brain. Curiosity and openness to experience give us the ability to be inventive and creative, to solve complex (sometimes life-or-death) problems, to imagine things that don’t yet exist, and to accomplish great undertakings in the face of enormous odds.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. ‘Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?’… I don’t know. I don’t have any answers to those questions. I don’t know what’s over there around the corner. But I want to find out. —Eugene Cernan

Curious, open-minded people see the world differently from other people, both literally—in terms of basic visual perception—and figuratively. They tend to screen out less visual information, so they sometimes see things others block out. And they “see” more possibilities as a result of being divergent (rather than convergent) thinkers.

Are You Intentional?

In order to be creative, we need to be able to change something in the world. But we also need to be able and willing to be changed by the world.

Of course, to a great extent we do create our own reality, so our interactive relationship with the world could be said to be creative. But the reality that we create for ourselves happens outside our awareness and outside our control. It’s pretty amazing, but we can’t take credit for it. It doesn’t require anything from us, and we can live our entire lives taking it for granted, having no curiosity about it and paying no attention to it whatsoever.

If you have no curiosity about yourself and your relationship with the world, you may want things to be different, but you’re unlikely to engage in the cognitive investigation and exploration that can lead to creativity and change. So you’re unlikely to do anything to change the status quo.

If you’re curious, however, the questions are more interesting—and more alive—than the answers. As a result, you never stop exploring. You take very little for granted. And you’re intentional about changing your brain, yourself, and your world.

YOU: A Work of Art in Progress

by Leave a Comment

As long as you’re alive, your life is a work in progress (unfinished). But is it just work or is it a work of art? And what difference does it make?

The idea of living one’s life as a work in progress is not original. But several decades ago, when I was struck afresh by the rich possibilities of artistic metaphor, I not only looked at my own life in this context, I also queried some friends.

No one had trouble responding, and I was surprised by every one of their answers. A former insurance industry executive said his life would be a multi-media performance piece. A writer described her life as a sculpture, while a musician referred to his as a “junk” sculpture. A computer programmer declared his life was a symphony. Here are a handful of detailed descriptions:

Kathy:

I see myself as a mobile spinning out of control.
I’m not quite put together in a way that moves with the ebb and flow of gentle breezes yet.
I’m unbalanced and jerked around right now.
One or two pieces of something substantial need to be added so I can untangle myself when the forces of nature, or human hand, cause me to spin temporarily out of control.
(This temporary spinning does not inflict permanent damage. It just causes me not to be my usual self.)

Kelly:

The work of art in progress: me covered in layer upon layer of steel, concrete, wood, glass, gunpowder, feathers, year after year and lots of work…maybe some layers come off to expose this work of art…me.
Kinda like a big clump of marble, taking off what is not me and getting to the real David…um, no…Kelly.
Warning: completed works of art are not on our plane anymore.

Lee:

A sand castle, co-structured by a small child.
We came from the sea, I will go back to the sea…
Imperfect, made from tiny pieces and subject to the whims of nature…
Able to be tall and strong, ridged yet soft…
Able to be shaped by the people and the world around me…
Formed by wet sand dripping from a child’s hand or sculptured by forms and expert hands.

Linda:

I think of MY LIFE as an oil painting. Starting with a clean canvas I splash some paint on, just to see what it will look like.
After experimenting, I decide that it would be better to Have a Plan.
I draw out in pen what I want to paint. I add some color.
If I catch the paint before it dries I can change it or scrape it off entirely.
The memory of what has gone before is still there, but it is not entrenched in who I am.
When I wait too long and the paint dries, it becomes a part of the canvas.
I draw a new plan.
As I build up the layers of paint, adding depth, my canvas thickens with layers of paint.
I realize that I do not have to have a plan for everything.
I realize that my painting looks better when I have gone outside the lines of the plan.
My canvas now has years and years of paint added, paint that has dried, colors that have changed or been scraped off.
I’m really starting to like what I have painted.

Nicole:

Well, it would be a whirlwind in places spinning lots of reds, fiery and out of control, deep yellows, oranges, spinning AUTUMN colors. And then over where the BLUE starts to outnumber the red you will find other places: neatly categorized and presumably alphabetical little BLACK stacks. Each one placed with precision, stacked up to the ceilings in wavering stature, suggesting that they might fall at any moment in time.

Steve:

My life has always been a film, with music rambling in my head, the stimuli being “things passing by/me going forward”—motionless.

The Play’s the Thing…

Once upon a time, I saw my life as a play. There’s an inherent discipline in living life as a play in progress that’s different from the discipline involved in living life as a sculpture or a symphony or a painting. Staging, timing, and pacing are crucial. Significantly, in a play the props and scenery are vital—but only to the scenes they belong in. It makes no sense for an actor to become attached to any particular props.

I was aware of things as background props and of people, including myself, as characters from an early age. I wrote plays, read plays, hung out with the local drama group, and thought up names and descriptions of characters, as well as elaborate decorating schemes, to entertain myself.

At some point I noticed what I was doing and decided it was an odd way to think about myself and the world. Whereas other people seemed to make choices almost instinctively, I could consider a range of alternatives: a final choice would depend on the requirements of the scene or the plot line. Choosing otherwise seemed arbitrary. In spite of considering my view of life somewhat idiosyncratic, I continued to operate within that framework. When a major plot twist offered the opportunity for me to reinvent myself, I had no difficulty doing so. It was just a play, after all.

Although I probably appreciate the value in that point of view now more than I did then, I wouldn’t use the same metaphor to describe my current life. It often feels more like a surrealistic jigsaw puzzle: challenging, colorful, so much to look at, still not put together (still creating), and not at all what you’d expect.

There’s value in experimenting with styles and forms, imagining and reimagining our lives through different lenses and perspectives.

So, if your life were a work of art in progress, what metaphor would you choose to describe it? What shape would it take? What colors and/or sounds would it have? What process or media would be involved in its creation? What emotions would it evoke?

Would it be a painting, a sculpture, a black and white photo montage? A novel, a short story, a play, a poem, an essay? Would it be a song-cycle, a symphony, an opera, a collage, a Rodgers and Hart musical, a movie? Or…something else altogether.

A metaphor is always a framework for thinking, using knowledge of this to think about that. —Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life

A focus on creating yourself is the opposite of a focus on fixing yourself: the motion and the action are forward rather than backward. Thinking about your life as a work of art in progress can shift your view of what you’re doing in life—and of what you’re capable of doing. Creating art is compelling and juicy and expansive. It is an ongoing process of bringing something—in this case you—into being.

It is that dimension [our imagination of ourselves] whereby we are not merely living our lives—passively, as it were—but are actively giving them shape: ceaselessly interpreting and inventing ourselves afresh. It is that dimension whereby we do not receive a life as much as compose a life—as we might compose a story. As we appreciate the extent of this dimension, it becomes impossible to see how any aspect of our lives can escape our self-creative touch. —William Lowell Randall, The Stories We Are

Do You Want a Resilient Brain?

by Leave a Comment

The greater your cognitive reserve, the more resilient your brain will be. Brain reserve—or cognitive reserve*—helps your brain adapt and respond to changes and resist damage. It gives it the ability to improvise and find alternate ways of doing a job or performing a task.

Your cognitive reserve begins to develop in childhood and gets stronger as you move through adulthood. If you continue to learn, embrace new activities, and develop new skills and interests, you will continually build and maintain your cognitive reserve.

This is another reason to aim for challenging yourself rather than taking it easy and following the path of least resistance. You don’t know when you’re going to need your cognitive reserve, so it’s good to have as much of it as possible “in the tank.”

Protection from Damage

The concept originated in the 1980s. Researchers discovered that some people who were found at autopsy to have brain changes consistent with advanced Alzheimer’s disease had displayed no apparent symptoms of dementia before they died. These individuals had enough cognitive reserve to offset the damage to their brains to allow them to continue functioning as they always had.

Cognitive reserve can also help stave off degenerative changes associated with other brain diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or a stroke.

Even if you’re fortunate enough to never experience any of these diseases, you can still benefit from developing cognitive reserve. It can help you function better—and for longer—when you experience unexpected and stressful life events, which tend to require more effort from your brain.

You can’t prevent yourself from aging or insulate yourself from all stressful, unexpected, or life-altering events. You don’t have total control over what kinds of diseases or deficits your genes might predispose you to develop. But you can do something to moderate how much these challenges affect you, your well being, and your ability to function.

Learning, Curiosity, and Dopamine

Even if you don’t develop neurological or psychological disorders, brain circuits that rely on dopamine tend to decline in function with aging. But curiosity prepares your brain for learning by activating the reward system, enhancing memory and motivation in the process. When you’re learning something you’re deeply—as opposed to idly—curious about, you’re more likely to recall and retain what you learn about that topic. You’re also more likely to retain unrelated information you encounter at the same time.

Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it. —Matthias Gruber, UC Davis Center for Neuroscience

Curiosity, challenge, and complexity seem to define the path that leads to strong cognitive functioning and a more active and enjoyable life now—and to greater cognitive reserve whenever you may need it.

Have your education, work, and leisure activities challenged you over the years? If so, they have contributed to your cognitive reserve. If not, there’s no time like now to reverse course if you want to do as much as you can to maintain your memory and your cognitive skills for as long as you can. Engaging in a variety of activities—physical, mental, and social—with differing levels of complexity have a synergistic effect. So the more things you do in these areas, the better—for both you and your brain.

*“Brain reserve” is sometimes used to refer to physical changes in the brain such as an increase in neurons and synapses (aka the “hardware”). “Cognitive reserve” is sometimes used to refer to the brain’s capabilities and skills in regard to completing tasks, learning new things, or recall (aka the “software”). These distinctions are really two sides of the same coin, and research is currently being conducted on the relationship between them.

Dueling Mindsets:
Productivity vs. Creativity

by Leave a Comment

Is it better to have an uncluttered desk or a messy desk? Does it depend on your personality? Or does it depend on the job you have—or on your habits or circumstances?

We all have our own tendencies in regard to clutter and organization (which may or may not be associated with personality), and we’ve also developed habits that we probably have opinions about. But whether an uncluttered desk is better than a messy desk depends on whether you’re aiming to be productive or to be creative.

Note: Sometimes create is used in the sense of produce or make, so the terms are often used interchangeably. That’s not what I’m talking about. Nor am I using creative as a synonym for artistic.

In the Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt write:

We master what is and envisage what-ifs.

If we place productivity in the domain of “what is” and creativity in the domain of “what-if,” that can give us a sense of the distinction between the two. Both mindsets are equally powerful—meaning they provide us with the ability to do something or act in a particular way—but only when we apply them appropriately.

Productivity Mindset

Mastering what is: sometimes velocity is power.

The productivity mindset is all about making the most efficient use of your resources (time, energy, effort, etc.). It is associated with speed, performance, output, and production. It is the mindset of getting things done: finishing projects, completing tasks, meeting deadlines, and reaching goals. The productivity mindset is effective for achieving measurable results.

It is the best mindset to have when:

  • You know what you’re doing.
  • You know how to do it.
  • The tasks or objectives are clear (understandable and unambiguous).

It isn’t necessarily a good mindset to have when:

  • You aren’t sure what needs to be done.
  • You aren’t sure how to do it or if you can do it.
  • You haven’t clearly defined the problem or you’re trying to solve the wrong problem.

Some things to remember about productivity and the productivity mindset are:

  • It makes use of the brain’s attention network. That kind of focus requires System 2 attention, which is limited.
  • Because System 2 attention is limited, your productivity will be greatly enhanced by organization, preparation, and delegation.
  • Practice saying no. Distraction is detrimental to both focused attention and productivity. Eliminating distractions and interruptions and setting boundaries can boost productivity.
  • Acting deliberately—thoughtfully, carefully, and intentionally—can help ensure successful results or outcomes.
  • Pitfalls to over-use or inappropriate use of the productivity mindset include: doing for the sake of doing (checking items off a list), absence of reflection or awareness, failure to develop a vision, a tendency to lose track of the vision, and taking action when stopping or pausing would be a better choice.
Creativity Mindset

Envisaging what-if: sometimes wandering is power.

The creativity mindset is all about seeing existing ideas or objects in a different light, generating new and better solutions to new or old problems, and connecting the dots in novel ways. Whether in business, the arts, science, or your personal life, the creativity mindset requires flexibility, imagination, originality, and inventiveness. The definition of a satisfying end result may be more subjective than objective. The desired outcome may be altered or transformed as you wander toward it and your perspective changes.

It is the best mindset to have when:

  • You aren’t following—or don’t have—a blueprint, set of guidelines, or format to go by.
  • You haven’t yet determined or defined the full scope of the project, idea, or problem.
  • You are either open to, need to, or want to arrive at an innovative solution.

It isn’t necessarily a good mindset to have when:

  • The best outcome amounts to reinventing the wheel.
  • You’re facing a deadline and the existing system or guidelines are good enough.
  • It’s a ploy to help you avoid making a commitment, taking action, or making a mistake.

Some things to remember about creativity and the creativity mindset are:

  • It makes use of the brain’s default mode network, which includes mind wandering, free association, spontaneous cognition, and other System 1 processes we’re not consciously aware of.
  • System 1 processing is non-linear and doesn’t produce results according to an external time frame.
  • Practice saying yes. Distraction—and even daydreaming (what’s called “positive constructive daydreaming”)—can be more helpful than harmful to the creativity mindset.
  • Pursuing ideas, interests, or trains of thought that seem far-fetched or disconnected may turn out to provide the missing link or lead to an aha!
  • Pitfalls to over-use or inappropriate use of the creativity mindset include: drifting and dreaming (losing your way), continually second-guessing yourself, not meeting deadlines or being unresponsive to others, focusing on vision to the exclusion of action, and failure to contribute anything useful or meaningful to the world.
Both Mindsets

Of course you undoubtedly use both of these mindsets, sometimes on the same project or process. You may have a preference for one over the other, or you may simply have more experience with one of them. But it’s much easier to achieve the desired results or outcome if you identify what you’re trying to accomplish and which mindset is the best one to get the job done.

Both the productivity mindset and the creativity mindset function best when they have a target: a clearly defined—and juicy—desired outcome or vision. You can move the target, but you won’t get anywhere satisfying without one.

Both mindsets also function best when you:

  • Develop supportive habits and routines—and maintain them.
  • Take breaks throughout the day and get enough R&R and sleep.
  • Move! Exercise, walk, dance, or hike.

As for your desk:

  • A messy desk is distracting and can hamper your ability to focus and process information. So if you want to be productive, clear your desk.
  • But a messy or disorderly environment can help you “break free of tradition,” according to researchers, which can lead to fresh insights and a free flow of ideas. So if you want to be creative, don’t clear your desk—or maintain a “creative” space to work in.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

by Leave a Comment

Emotion is a natural part of intelligence, so the term emotional intelligence might be somewhat misleading, especially considering the popular view of it. Emotional intelligence 1.0 is based on two beliefs. First, that we can detect emotions accurately in other people based on their facial and bodily expressions. And second, that emotions are automatically triggered by events, but we can learn how to control them. Neither belief has held up to rigorous testing.

Emotional intelligence 2.0 is based on the brain being predictive—which means it is always assessing the situation to determine what action we should take—as well as the concept of emotional granularity: putting feelings into words with a high degree of complexity. So the more precisely we can identify and recognize our emotions, the faster and more accurate our brain will be in assessing the situation to determine the most appropriate response.

For the brain, the payoff of higher emotional granularity is efficiency. For us, the payoffs include a greater ability to identify our desired outcomes, enhanced experience, and improved critical thinking and decision-making. Developing an appreciation for a variety of nuanced emotional states is preferable to trying to maintain any particular emotional state.

Nuance and Experience

Artists tend to have a more nuanced perception of colors than non-artists, as do musicians in regard to music, architects in regard to buildings, botanists in regard to plants, and sailors in regard to the sea. Their training alters their experience and with it their sense of who they are.

We can similarly train ourselves to distinguish, appreciate, and detect more nuanced emotions than we habitually identify, which can, in turn, alter what is possible for us to experience and, therefore, who we are, who we can be, and what we can do.

Your personal experience is actively constructed by your actions. You tweak the world, and the world tweaks you back. You are, in a very real sense, an architect of your environment as well as your experience. —Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made

Our emotional vocabulary reflects the concepts we have for emotions, and those concepts influence our experience because they help our brain “construct” our emotional states.

Research shows that increased emotional granularity doesn’t just add words to our vocabulary; it also leads to a greater ability to experience emotions without getting swamped or tossed around by them. Remarkably, high emotional granularity also leads to better health.

We don’t perceive reality so much as we interact with what’s “out there” in a particular way that creates our conscious perceptions of the world. Although they are internal, we do the same thing with emotions. There are no circuits for fear or anger or happiness or anticipation that are automatically triggered by events, forcing us to experience the resulting feeling. Emotions don’t simply happen to us. They’re conscious reflections of our engagement in and with the world—signs of life, so to speak.

Yes, things happen to us. But more importantly, they happen to us.

Note: For those who want to understand these concepts as they might relate to trauma, including PTSD, here’s a link to an article written by Michael K. Suvak and Lisa Feldman Barrett and published in 2011 in the Journal of Traumatic Stress: Considering PTSD from the Perspective of Brain Processes: a Psychological Construction Approach.

Contact Me

joycelyn@farthertogo.com
505-332-8677