Do Rules Hinder Creativity?

Do rules hinder creativity?

Can they? Sure….do they have to? No! In fact more often than not the rules help creativity flourish. 

Take the era of Classical music for example. Music needed to have a form or structure in order to allow the composer to communicate with the listener. The form of music gives meaning to the piece and allows the composer to communicate with e audience. Without any form to music it is hard to get the listener to stay on track with the composer’s thoughts. 

If we examine the world around us we realize that it is full of rules. It is rules that make everything function properly and it is rules that help us understand our surroundings. So it would only be logical that rules would help set the mind in the right direction in accordance with how to be creative. 

To emphasize this idea further think about how broad the idea of creativity is. If someone were to tell you to do something creative today there are millions upon millions of different things you could do to fulfill that task. This can be overwhelming to our minds and when we have so many choices it’s hard to even think of one! But if someone were to tell you to do something creative while cooking today it would narrow the spectrum and allow your mind to think of specific ideas. Rules help our minds sort things into categories so that they are easier to pull from as we experience life.

So while at first when someone asks if rules hinder creativity you might think yes! With rules I won’t be able to do certain things that my mind comes up with; but in reality it is rules that help us think of those creative ideas to begin with.  

Have you had any experiences with rules and creativity where they either hindered or helped your creative processes?

Science vrs. Technology

Oftentimes we clump science and technology together as if they were one in the same; but in reality Science is something completely different from Technology.

Science is the process of understanding the environment and of organizing that knowledge (History of Creativity—Brent Strong, Mark Davis).

Technology is the combination of skill and creativity by which people master their environment (History of Creativity—Brent Strong, Mark Davis). 

Science USES technology, and technology USES science but they are not one in the same. From these definitions we can begin to understand how science changes slowly while technology is changing faster than I change my clothes.

We live in a world, and especially a country, where laptops, tablets, cell phones, TVs, and the like are being created, enhanced, and recreated every day. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t use at least ONE of the things mentioned and I’m sure if I were to count how frequently I used technology in general in just one day it would be close to the number of times I blink. 

We are also privileged to live in a time where new scientific discoveries are being made quite frequently as well; while it doesn’t compare to the number of advancements in technology, scientific discoveries are more abundant now than they were previous to the 1470’s—when the Scientific Awakening began.

Previous to this awakening there was no such thing as a scientific discovery; people believed that ancient philosophers had already discovered “truth,” so anything scientists said that was new would go against that truth. Could you imagine what life would be like if we all took this kind of view? What if we felt this way about everything in our world…our lives and work would become stagnant with no new ideas or creations. In an essence…creativity would cease to exist!

So don’t let anyone tell you you’re wrong, keep your mind open to new ideas a dreams always. When our minds our open our worlds are too.