It is customary when I buy a book for a friend to have a brief flick through it before giving it away. One of my more recent purchases was a book titled What made you think of that?, a book I bought for a good friend who is naturally very creative despite working in the very technical domain of engineering. The basic premise of the book is as follows – by changing the way we approach creativity and the process of creative thinking, we can improve the process through which we generate ideas. One of the most interesting parts of the book was the discussion surrounding the left and right hand side of the brain. When we are born, the right side of our brain, the side we associate with creativity, exploration, imagination and dreaming is large compared to the left, the side generally regarded as the logical, analytical, mathematical, process-driven side of the brain. As we get older and become indoctrinated with society’s language, rules and norms, the right side shrinks while the left side continues to grow. The author states that the consequence of this is a logical, left-brain driven society lacking in imagination and creativity. I can certainly relate to this – up until about the age of 14 years, whilst hopeless at everything in my school art class, I was very interested in making anything that involved combining paper mache, blu tac, paint, old scraps of material, and revelled in the opportunity to make up recipes or modify existing ones. This changed as I became older, and in many ways, the right side of my brain has remained effectively dormant over the past few years.
The good news is that the right side of the brain can be exercised and can physically grow.
As I have reflected in this blog of late, I have been working to expand the right hand side of my brain (not that I realised I was doing this until recently!). This involved getting back into things I used to love to do – such as cooking and dancing lessons, or have always wanted to do – such as gardening. Rather than label it as such, I prefer to refer to this exercise as twisting the structure of my average day. This phrase, derived from one of The Wombats’ songs, Jump Into the Fog would appear to explicitly foster creativity, and would suggest that I will be engaging in a wide variety of activities that exercise the right hand side of my brain.
So, I have found myself thinking how I can twist the structure of my average day and therefore make creativity and spontaneity a priority in my life. This project officially began a few weeks ago when my housemates and I decided to invite the neighbours who we have only ever waved to over for drinks at our house. Despite our knocking at their door on three separate occasions, and not having them answer, we persisted, eventually resulting in arranging a night not long after to have drinks at our place. A week after our brief chat with them at the front door, the night of our get-to-know-our-neighbours arrived. We had no idea what it would be like – whether conversation would flow easily, whether they would like the avocado dip we had prepared, or whether the evening would result in our waves being substituted for animated conversation next time we see each other on the street. In the end, it turned out to be a fun night involving a range of topics– stories of our travels to their homeland (India); Australian and Indian culture; their visits to the gym and experiences at work; stories about their housemate called Happy who, funnily enough, is not of sunny disposition along with tales about their family back in India.
I will not go into too much detail about other ways in which I am working to twist the structure of my day/week/month/life. Among other things, I have attempted to resurrect the compost bin (although little solution as to where to dispose of the compost waste given my local community garden no longer takes compost waste), become a member and attended a working bee of my local community garden and started training to be a meditation teacher (more on that another day!).
Creative genius comes as a result of learning how to think in a different way. Whilst I am certainly not on the trajectory to be any kind of genius, I have noticed within myself a heightened sense of openness and curiosity about life since I started proactively twisting the structure of my average day.
‘Getting creative’ and exploring your inner artist is not the only way to increase the activity in the right side of the brain and think differently. Sarah Wilson, one of my favourite columnists in The Sunday Life magazine refers to Nietzsche who wrote that, ‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.’ Similarly, she makes reference to Henry Thoreau who once said, ‘Methinks the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin in flow.’ Stephanie Dowdrick, the author of many books I love to read including Everyday kindness – short cuts to a happier and more confident life, also speaks fondly of her zest for walking each day. I have no doubt that her regular walking assists to fuel her creative thinking and subsequent thoughtful and heart warming musings on life.
One of the most important messages in What made you think of that? is that there is only one barrier to embracing some form of creativity each day and that is ourselves. In some ways, it involves acting like a tourist in a city that on the surface we think we are familiar with until we dig a little deeper and realise that there is lots still to explore.
This blog entry is an attempt to hold myself accountable to my commitment to twisting the structure of my average day.
I would love to hear how others are working towards twisting the structure of their average days. Are you treating each day as a tourist may, approaching everything with curiosity and openness, and enjoying and pursuing activities that encourage you to think differently?
If so, I would say that you, as a result of the expanded right side of your brain are in a happy place.
