Creativity

Every Wednesday is Tip Day or List Day. This Wednesday: 8 strategies to help you boost your happiness. This is an exciting week for me! Read More

My reading about life in many different hunter-gatherer cultures has led me to conclude that their work is play for four main reasons: (1) It is varied and requires much skill and intelligence. (2) There is not too much of it. (3) It is done in a social context, with friends. And (4) (most significantly) it is, for any given person at any given time, optional. Let me expand on these, point by point. Each point is relevant to our lives, today. Read More

To daydream or not to daydream . . . and why do we have to make that choice? Yet we get conflicting messages on this all the time. In the abstract, we tend to admire traits such as creativity and imagination, yet we're constantly told to focus, to live in the present moment and not think about the future or the past, to be mindful only of what is and not what could be. Read More

As an entertainer, Michael Jackson was obviously second to none. His spellbinding "pop" artistry was mesmerizing to virtually everyone who watched him perform. And in the few days since his passing, the tributes made to his creative musical gifts have drawn an extraordinary amount of attention. Still, in the past two decades as much probably has been said about Michael's psychological quirkiness (if not downright pathology) as about his prodigious talent. . . . Read More

Despite the fact that we all daydream, most of us don't discuss it. We're more likely to talk about our sex lives (or crimes!) than reveal a daydream. Moreover, many of us have been taught that daydreaming is somehow "bad." Yet daydreams are far more than wishful thinking--they are our source of ideas, energy, creativity, self-knowledge, and motivation. Read More

One of the first and most often reinforced lessons that children learn in school is that work and play are opposites. Work is what one has to do; play is what one wants to do. Work is burdensome; play is fun. Work is essential; play is trivial. But when we leave school and go on to the "real world," at least some of us, the lucky ones, discover that work is not the opposite of play. In fact, work can be play, or at least it can be imbued with a high degree of playfulness. . . . When work is play, it is humanizing. Read More

For a long time, my book felt very…imaginary. Read More

Watching the new Star Trek movie reminds us once again that Mister Spock is a master of the imagination. How's that?! Spock, the premier exemplar of logic and reason, imaginative? Find out what he has to tell us about what may be the most important thinking skill in our creative toolbox. Read More

Poetry therapy is the intentional use of poetry and other forms of literature for healing and personal growth. The contributions and vision of poet and poetry therapist Ken Gorelick enhanced our knowledge about how personal insight is embodied in line and verse and just how poems can repair both body and mind. Most of all, his life's work helped both patients and colleagues listen to the powerful healing found in the "presences inside poems." Read More