Since the beginning of humanity, we always needed creativity to solve the problems that we encountered. Creativity has many faces. Each person has his own definition of what creativity is. All these people also have their own tricks to exercises it. Effectively, creativity is like the brain or muscles, if you train it, it became more effective at his task.

Some people think that creativity is only good for art freaks; thank God, it is not. As a knowledge worker, I face many problems that I need to solve. I not only need my knowledge to solve them; I also need to arrange that knowledge in such a way that it will resolve my problems. For me, this is one of my definitions of creativity: a way to organize the knowledge I have to try to solve a problem I encounter.

As I said before, you could train your creativity. Why do I train my creativity? To be more effective at arranging my knowledge; to train me to see the problems I face differently, to look at them from another point of view. I need to check out-of-the-box.

How do I train my creativity? There are two main things I do to change my mind and train my creativity. I discovered the first one many years ago: it is fighting. I already talked about it in a little essay I wrote on the combat’s rhythm. I discovered the second 312 days ago, when I started to write daily (for this blog). It forced me to concentrate on the task, to try to say exactly what I think with the words I have. I needed to get these words (pieces of knowledge) and organize them (creativity) in such a way that people would understand me (solving the problem).

Tonight I discovered a new one: photography. The night was beginning; I had nobody with whom drinking a beer to check the evening pass. Then I got the digital camera I bought for my India trip, put it into my packsack, and I assaulted my city. I live here since about 13 years, and I never done this before. In fact, it is the first time I really get the time to take pictures (the last time was 5 years ago in my European tour). What a discovery. I saw the city, which looked at me growth since about 13 years, for the first time. I was looking everywhere, I wanted The picture. I checked people wandering in the street: I was practicing my creativity in such a way that I saw things differently; I checked out-of-the-box. It is really new to me. Then, the next time I will have a mind block; that I will not be able to get any inspiration in fighting or writing, I will get my camera and see at things from another point of view; see things from the digital window of my Kodak camera.

By the way, I will put some of these pictures in the headline of this blog probably tomorrow.

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