David Bohm on what is a creative mind and why is it important? From Bohm, D. (1998) On creativity, Routledge.
What is the nature of a creative mind?
“What then is the creative state of mind, which so few have been able to be in? …. It is first of all, one whose interest in what is being done is whole-hearted and total, like that of a young child. With this spirit, it is always open to learning what is new, to perceiving new differences and similarities, leading to new orders and structures, rather than always tending to impose familiar orders and structures in the field of what is seen.” p17. (Further exploration on the penetrative insights which occur with this natural creative state of mind will come later.)
Societal problems and the importance of developing a creative mind…..
“The mechanical and uncreative character of most human activity tends, at the very least, to lead to what may be called a “general mess”….. p18
“The fact that society is in a “mess” is the result of the conflict of arbitrary and fragmentary mechanical orders of relatively independently determined actions. Any effort to impose on overall order in this “mess” will serve only to make it worse. What then is to be done? I would suggest that it is a wrong order of approach to try first to solve the social problem. Rather, the key is in the state of mind of the individual. For as long as the individual cannot really learn from what he does and sees, whenever such learning requires that he go outside the framework of his basic preconceptions, then his action will ultimately be directed by some idea that does not correspond to the fact as it is. Such action is worse than useless, and evidently cannot possibly give rise to a genuine solution of the problems of the individual and of society.” p19
Returning the mind to a more natural state of freedom
“The tendency to 'fall asleep' is sustained by an enormous number of habitually applied preconceptions and prejudices, most of which are absorbed at a very early age, in a tacit rather than explicit form. Therefore, whoever is really interested in what it means to be original and creative will have above all to pay careful and continual attention to how these are always tending to condition his thoughts, feelings and overall behaviour….. But as he becomes sensitively aware of how the whole process works, in himself and in others, he is likely to discover that the mind is beginning to come to a more natural state of freedom, in which all this conditioning is seen to be the triviality that it really is. …... pps 25, 26
This means that it is up to each person to make the first step for himself, without following another, or setting up another as his authority for the definition of what creativity is and for advice on how it is to be obtained. Unless one starts to discover this for himself, rather than to try to achieve the apparent security of a well laid-out pattern of action, he will be just deluding himself and thus wasting his efforts….
Certain kinds of things can be achieved by techniques and formulae, but originality and creativity are not among these. The act of seeing this deeply (and not merely verbally or intellectually) is also the act in which originality and creativity can be born.” p26