Especially for SME – 14: Creativity.
17 November 2021
SME 1: What did you ask 1+1 = ?., you cannot humiliate us like that!
SME 3 : Very tough question! It is 2. There is only one answer and where is it coming from? Form logic which we learnt at school i.e., from the left lobe of our brain. Can any one give any other answer for the same problem?
SME 1: I have heard my friend tell me it can be 11!
Mr. Lower: Did you ask your friend how? Or did you question yourself how?
SME 1: Yes, if we give a different interpretation to +, instead of taking it as arithmetical plus, we can give an interpretation as ‘add’ and come out with 1 and 1 i.e., 11!
Mr. Lowe: Great! That is we can develop our creative thinking by giving different interpretation or basis to what we usually give but without changing the problem itself. Can anyone of you come out with any other basis and come out with any other solution?
SME 2: Yes, I can: I can say 1 is not one but a line and then say one line and another line and get L,T, V. X, I(1 written over 1) etc.
Mr. Lowe: Brilliant! Can anyone think of any other basis and come out with different solution?
SME 3: Yes, I can say same basis line and line also gives different mathematical signals like : <,>,=etc.
Mr. Lowe: Absolutely great! Now tell me how many answers we have got to the same one problem?
SME 2: Many, many compared to the one answer we got by using only logic! In the second instance we used imagination but also in a directed way i.e., creating two new bases which are also logical, not illogical. And to create logical bases we have to use the left lobe.
Mr. Lowe: So can we say all these many answers are also right answers?
SME 3: Yes certainly. Oh, this is why you said creativity gives many possible right solutions whereas logic gives one right solution!
Mr. Lowe: Yes. Now that you know the power of creativity, you realize how important a resource it is! That is why Nature packs every child born with 100% creative potential at birth. The right lobe is fully developed. Biden’s grandson is as creative as our servant’s grandson. But as we bring up our kids our do’s and don’s along with our schools’ do’s and don’ts without assigning any reason for do’s and don’ts reduces the use of creativity and our right lobe hardly gets any exercise and becomes idle. Can you guess what % of our creative potential you and I use in our lives at our ages? 1.1%! Einstein was forced to use the right lobe because of his need to do so in pursuit of his relativity theory. His experiments involved inter stellar and interplanetary distances and so he could not create laboratories physically of those dimensions to experiment. So he had to imagine, using his right lobe and created what are now famous as Einstein’s mental laboratories. Can you guess how much the most creative individual of recent times, Einstein was supposed to have used?
SME 1: A person who created mental laboratories only thru imagination! Should be at least 75%!
Mr. Lowe: Just 14%! Will you buy any machine if it is going to be used only 14% of the time? But we forget that we are doing it day in day out – not even 14% but 1.1% - with one of our most precious resource namely creativity! ……………………….contd.