How To Create New Ideas

BEFORE YOU START_{• • •}

Here are ten things you may find it helpful to know:

1. This is not a book about painting masterpieces, inventing solar-powered space ships, making a million dollars, or building widgets, gimmicks or gadgets. (Even if I knew anything about these things—which I don’t—they still would not constitute the focal point of this effort.) It is a book about the mental processes that underlie such creative feats—and may lead to them if one is so motivated.
2. It does no good to advise anyone to “Think,” or “Use your imagination,” and stop there. Such advice, however well-intentioned, leaves the advisee at a frustrated loss, for it fails to explain My purpose here is to avoid this deficiency and, instead, to concentrate upon the job of explaining some of the most significant things known about how to think creatively.
3. This book is meant to be different. Not different just be­cause that is in keeping with the essential nature of Creative. Not different for mere difference’s sake. Different for the sake of usefulness, betterness, clarity, completeness, interest, and easiness—for you.
4. The notion persists popularly that creative ability is some strange, mysterious, esoteric faculty—an almost magical faculty possessed exclusively by the blessed, chosen few. (“Either you have it, or you don’t.”) I, for one, don’t believe it. On the contrary, I am convinced that . . . Every human being has some creative ability—most of it latent. Every person can raise the level of creativity at which he has been habitually functioning. The origination of ideas can be almost as definite a process as the production of material things. In generating new ideas, the creative mind follows operating procedures that can be learned and controlled. And I aim to prove these convictions to your satisfaction and benefit. 
5. This book derived from more than two decades of tedious but continuing study of creativity via . . . Investigation of published reports on scientific research in this and related fields. Study of general psychology, logic, philosophy, science, et al. Analysis of my own habitual mental processes—good and bad. Discussions with successful innovators in various fields of endeavor. Study of written case histories of creative people, their accomplishments, and their methods. Observation of, and participation with, creative people at work. Experimentation with individuals, formal adult classes in The Art of Creative Thinking, and creative groups “in workshop”.  Point: The principles and methods described in this book have been tested. They work. 
6. There are no slick, quick, trick short-cuts to creativity If there are any such in existence—anywhere—I haven’t been able to find them. Rather, the choices seem to be only between using sound principles or not-so-sound, and good methods or not-so-good. The good and sound make the task easier, but let no one be fooled: Creative Thinking is hard work.
   (Only men, not boys, need apply.) 
7. It costs much to boot-strap one’s creativity. But it is worth more than it costs. 
8. The attitudes you bring to the study of Creative Thinking are pivotally important. If, for instance, you are determined to cling to all previous conceptions of “Experienced Judgment” or “Common Sense”, you will be off to a flying bad start. Ex­perienced Judgment may be infinitely experienced and judicious, as inferred. Common Sense may be uncommonly sensible, as The creative mind is skeptical, though: it underlines the “may’s” and goes on to investigate. 
9. Big, technical-sounding, obscure words and terms arouse my suspicions. Too often, I have found, they are used for dis­plays of erudition—or as watchdogs to keep intruders out of “private” domains—or as semantical smoke screens. (For ex­ample, I once asked a psychologist why it was such a thrill to ride a roller coaster. “Kinesthesia,” he said. I looked this up and found it was a Greek word meaning “sense of motion”. Thus the “explanation” explained no more in Greek than in ) On the hunch that you feel somewhat as I do about words of this kind, I have avoided using them in this book except where they serve some constructive purpose. If they are not explained at the point of use, where used, it is because they are probably not very important. 
10. The term, “Creative Thinking,” is quite a mouthful. Hereinafter, for the most part, I will shorten it to CT. This will save time and effort for everyone.

J.W.T.