Creativity as a Product of Paradox

365 Days of Creativity - Day 8 - The Many Paradoxes of Creativity.

Merriam - Webster defines paradox as "a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true." After decades of listening to people's thoughts on the creative process, I've come to the conclusion that arts and crafts (and pretty much any new endeavor for that matter) is just a matter of understanding its paradoxes.


For instance, how many of you spend hours of your week reading articles by "the experts", only to realize that your best chance for success is to strike out to find your own style? Of course, if your style is *too* unique, it'll be a lot harder to be found, because no one will be looking for you.


Or perhaps you spent years in school learning all the rules of "proper" (insert your craft here), only to realize that the rules were made to be broken (at least if you want to come up with something novel!) Breaking the rules, however, usually results in having to work harder to prove that your way is just as good.

Everyone will tell you to be sure you have a plan. However, you also need to be ready to abandon it without frustration when you realize it's not working. 


And this one will infuriate all of those copyright policy experts out there... everything we create, no matter how original it is, starts out from something that's already been created. In the wake of all of the insanity about who owns the rights to what (I'm thinking the Samsung / Apple design debaucle ) it's getting next to impossible to know where that magical fine line really is on derivation or fair us. 



Creativity encourages the development of new ideas - along with hundreds of other ideas that either won't work or we'll never use.


If you do custom work, this is especially true - You need to learn how to be persistent without being stubborn.


Most creative people that I've had the pleasure to know do have one thing in common... we have the ability to look at the same thing, and each be drawn to something totally different in it. One might see texture, another might see the way the colors relate, yet another will see its basic lines, and all of our interpretations of this same simple object will serve as the basis of our creativity. For instance, what do you see in the picture below?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duck-Rabbit_illusion.jpg

These are just some of the paradoxical thoughts that I could come up with, but what contradictory thinking do you embrace in your creative endeavors?  I'd love it if you'd share!

xo,