Have You Ever Had a Hunch? The Importance of Creative Thinking
New! Second edition, updated, and expanded
Ellen Palestrant
Paperback, 6x9 in, 176 pages, Illustrated, Second edition, updated and expanded version
Elusive Press, August 2005
ISBN: 1587365251
Description
Reclaim you creativity by exploring the educational, sociological, psychological, and political influences on independent thinking. Have You Ever Had A Hunch? is a powerful tool for self-growth and an invaluable gift for anyone wanting to explore their own creativity. In a series of short, to the point chapters, author Ellen Palestrant strips away the layers of inhibition and repression that encumbers all of us.
About the Author
Ellen Palestrant, educated in South Africa and Britain, currently lives in Arizona. She is a game inventor, hydroponic farmer, special education teacher, television script writer, college instructor, and co-publisher of a college press. Her published books include Nosedive, Johannesburg One Hundred, Remembering Dolores, I Touched a Star in My Dream Last Night, and Pretzel on Prozac: The Story of an Immigrant Dog.
Excerpt
Introduction
As members of society, we are attached to strings—to certain behavioral agreements essential to reasonable group cooperation. If, however, our ability to follow our independent hunches confidently and courageously is impaired, and if our spontaneity is curtailed, these restrictions become hunch crunchers, inhibitors that strangle creativity.
If we hope to progress, therefore, we need to understand the many influences on our lives, embrace some, reject others, and then, despite these strings and because of them, confidently follow our hunches into a world of creativity. There will always be problems to face and strings attached to almost all we do, but we can still be creatively free. Instead of regarding these strings as reasons for not attempting new enterprises, we can be challenged to incorporate restrictions creatively into what we do, or transcend their boundaries.
Because our world is changing so rapidly, most of us will need to adjust periodically to new and often confusing circumstances. Our best way to plan for tomorrow is to prepare for tomorrow, and to be ready, we need to be adaptable. Few of us will have only one career throughout our lives. Our economic, political and social situations will alter. So not only is it important for us at present to have a deep knowledge of our field of work and enjoy the security of our family and social environments, but, should the necessity arise, we also need to be able to skillfully create and accommodate new work and social circumstances. We will probably have to recreate ourselves in varying degrees many times during the course of our lives. For us there will be many beginnings. Creativity is about beginning. It is also about completing what we begin.
Many people are more adept at creative thinking than they realize, but haven’t had the opportunity to discover that capacity within themselves, nor sought the adventure (and challenge) of finding their answers from within instead of from external sources. Too many individuals simply haven’t had the experience of creating independently or collaboratively, and creativity comes with practice. It also comes from self-direction, self-motivation, self-actualization, and from learning not to rely only on known sets of solutions.
In order to unleash their creativity, people need to understand the obstacles to their independent thinking. Their creative restrictions have come from a variety of inhibitors, accumulated and passively accepted over the years. These have stood in the way of their perception of the extent of their abilities, and have caused many to lack the confidence and courage to try new things, and bring them to fruition. Too often, individuals, quite wistfully, regard areas that intrigue them as being outside their domain, and therefore do not dare to attempt them.
This is not, however, a “how-to” book, but rather, a “what stands in your way” one. There are no methods I wish to impose, no recipes for instant success. I do not want my direction to stand in the way of you and your originality. Instead, I would like you to recognize what has historically impeded you and prevented you from following your own hunches. By identifying these hunch crunchers, you will be freed to value your own intuitions, find your own path to creativity, and hence your potential.
While reading this book, you might also enjoy the affirmation that many things in which you believe, many ideas that at times have set you apart from others, are, in fact, valid, even though you hadn’t realized it before. What has felt right for you is right, and your hunches are indeed worthy of your attention.
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
The Hunch
The Hunch Crunchers
A Hurry-Up Culture
We Are Saturated
Our Children Are Saturated, Too
Lack of Solitude:
No Place To Be Alone
No Ability To Be Alone
Instructional Intrusion, Emotional Intrusion
Drill and Kill
A How-To-Feel Nation
A How-To-Feel-Ill Nation
Categorical Apartheid
What Do You Do?
Overspecialization
Judgmental Intrusion
Expectations
Evaluation
Criticism
Repression:
Group Thought
The Silencers
Inauthenticity
A Mindless Existence
An Otherself
Reliance On Role Models
Visible or Valuable?
Resumed
Networked
Fear
Fear of Risk
Fear of Failure
Fear of Being Different
Blinkered Thinking
Negativity
Dogmatism
Solution-Bound
Rule-Bound
Role-Bound
Dream Deprivation
Severance from Night Dreams
Severance from Daydreams
Severance from Self
Severance from Childhood
Prerequisites for Creativity
Stock-Taking
A Concept Is Not Enough
Purpose and Commitment
Sacrifice
Passion—Not Flashin’
Joy
Deadlines or Dead Lines?
Empathy
Connectivity
Adaptability
Collaborative Creativity
Humor
Decision
It’s Time For Lunch
Text Bibliography
Quotation Bibliography
Index
Quotation Index
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