Hello!
Last week I went to the public library in search of some good reads. It all started in my creative writing class, where a bunch of us are trying to figure out what our writer’s voice sounds like. So far mine is still shy and not coming out fully, but I am positive it will soon reach its shouting potential.
While looking through a bunch of books about creativity I stumbled upon a few good finds. The one I am currently reading is: Spark – How creativity works. The book covers several stories of artists from all walks of life and it gives a shiny light of hope to all of us – we are not alone in this creative winding road.
Another book that caught my attention was Creativity, Art and the Young Child: a book about how to detect and nourish creativity in its early stages in life. Since we are all adults in here I thought this would be a rather amazing book to read. I know it’s aimed to children but I strongly believe we all should be a little bit more child-like. By this I don’t mean you should start eating play-doh and throw tantrums when your ice cream melts (although I bet some of you still do) but rather be adventurous, wild and inattentive to criticism. In order words – fuck the world and be you!
I figured, if this book sparks creativity in young humans, why can’t we use them on grown ups too? I bet it will be way easier to break creative blocks by going back to basics than by reading endless passages of human psychology and trying to figure out “what’s wrong with me, why can’t I [blank]” I’ll tell you what could potentially be wrong – you are taking your shit too serious.
Why don’t we relax for a bit and try a little exercise used in kids to measure their creativity (not fully measured, but at least a part of it). Let’s pick our brains and see what comes out. Wanna give it a try? Yeah you do!
2 Minute Test
To get started follow these easy breezy instructions, don’t skip the steps and don’t cheat! Do it and keep reading after the animated pic.
- Grab a piece of paper and a pencil or pen
- Get a watch or better yet, open the chronometer in your cellphone
- Set the timer to 2 minutes
- Think of a color.
- In these 2 minutes you will write as many things as possible that are in the color you chose. Anything goes.
What did you come up with?
A lot of random shit? The more random the better! The way this exercise works is that the more unusual answers you have the more creative and original you think. For instance, if you chose the color blue and you wrote stuff like:
- Sky
- Sea
- Shirt
- The color people turn when they don’t breathe
- When I am sad
- A winter evening
Stef says
Oh, fun exercise! Perfect for procrastinating against being creative and writing, anyway!
The Gbox says
haha totally! You know what they say, procrastination is an art by itself.
leelette says
Haha! I think I cheated! I was aware it was a creativity test, so as soon as the 2 minutes started, my mind thought, I probably shouldn’t put down the normal stuff (even though I did think of the normal stuff) and try to put down really creative things! LOL. So instead I ended up only able to think of 11 things in 2 freakin minutes! Haha!
The Gbox says
haha cheater! just kidding… yeah I know, we actually did it at work and some people didn’t write as many things because they thought about it – that’s creative! I’ll post more tests soon enough. Fun, right!?
leelette says
Haha! Yeah definitely, you know I’ll do whatever goofy thing to test my creativity yo!