John Cleese: Creativity is a Matter of Working Longer

How was  John Cleese able to generate so many creative scripts for the Monty Python Flying Circus? He worked longer hours, which required that he put up with more discomfort. That was his formula, which he discusses in this short video:

In 2020, Cleese wrote a wrote a short and cheerful guide to creativity called Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide.

Here are a few of my favorite ideas from his book:

Definition of creativity: "Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative."

"Creativity is elusive like a dim star – sometimes you can’t see it until we look away."

"Creativity often come when you least expect it. For instance, while leeping or taking a walk. To be creative, you often need to work in silence."

Creativity comes quietly – often it only whispers at you.

I began to realise that my unconscious was working on stuff all the time without my being consciously aware of it.And that's the problem with the unconscious. It is unconscious. The language of the unconscious is not verbal. It’s like the language of dreams. It shows you images, it gives you feelings, it nudges you around without you immediately knowing what it’s getting at.

There were only two differences between the creative and the uncreative architects. Creative architects knew how to play.Creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.

The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about.

Creativity may come from inside, as you suddenly remember something that you’ve forgotten to do, or worry that time is running out, or that you don’t think you’re clever enough to solve whatever problem it is that you’re trying to deal with. This can paralyse you.

It is, however, very important that when you first have a new idea, you don’t get critical too soon. New and “woolly” ideas shouldn’t be attacked by your logical brain until they’ve had time to grow, to become clearer and sturdier. New ideas are rather like small creatures. They’re easily strangled.

I'll close with two more quotes about creativity:

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." Chuck Close

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” Attributed to Pablo Picasso.

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The Plight of Popularizers

When I think of excellent popularizers, I first think of Carl Sagan (astronomy), but there are others, such as Thomas Sowell (economics). How difficult is it to be an excellent popularizer? Damned hard, according to (linguist) John McWhorter, an excellent popularizer in his own right. Sowell's work was the overall topic on this recent episode of The Glenn Show, featuring McWhorter and Glenn Loury, joined by Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institute. Here is what McWhorter had to say about difficult task of popularizers:

What people don't always know is that if you devote yourself to being a popularizer, to a certain extent, you're not taking the easy road. And I have never heard anybody say to me, as a linguist popularizer, that the popularizing isn't real work. So I'm not saying this out of some sort of pique. If anybody says that about me, and they must have, they've never said it to me. I get nothing but respect to my face, but I think a lot of people think popularizing isn't as hard as doing the real thing.

Having tried to popularize, it isn't just that you take away the detail and write stuff down. A lot of people who think "I could sit down and write a book in plain English, you know, explaining only what the ordinary person can understand. But I choose to do the real thing and write in tapeworm sentences and write with exquisite detail, etc." A lot of those people, I very humbly say, you have to have them sit down with, metaphorically, a blank piece of paper, and you are going to write about what you do. And this is the thing: Decide what you're going to put in terms of what the layman can understand, what is going to be a subtraction, what you're going to share with, you know, 55 specialists. But then not only write down what the layman can understand, but make it so that the layman will actually read it. It's one thing to put it on paper, but come up with a book that more than two people are going to read and then tell me that I'm just a "popularizer" and that I'm doing the easy thing because, frankly, not everybody can do that.

I know, there's some very noble popular linguistics books written by very smart and very nice people. But I must admit somewhere towards the middle, I find places where I think the reason that this book hasn't gotten around is because this person doesn't happen to have that particular knack. I remember one, I'm not going to mention it where he gets to a concept that is a little hard, you can get it across to people. But frankly, you'd have to know how. But he says, "Get some coffee. This is hard." And I thought "No, you don't tell them to get some coffee. You figure out how to get it across to them without them drinking any damn coffee!" That sort of thing. It means that you have to work at it. With Tom, it's hard work, what he's done, especially when you can read it as an ordinary person, I think.

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Pressure, Temperature, Volume!

Warning - Science Geekery ahead! Am I the only person in the world who gets that we can control for Boyle's Law? While reading a (Science Fiction) book, by a very respected author*, I encountered a scene where a character brews some coffee. Yum! I love coffee! But my delightful anticipation was immediately spoiled by the character's complaints about how the low ambient pressure makes for lukewarm coffee! Seriously? Have people never heard of these amazing newfangled devices called pressure cookers? Heck, Europeans have had little stovetop espresso makers for many many years, that are essentially little one-shot pressure cookers! With the correct setup such equipment can produce strong, hot coffee regardless of the ambient pressure! Whenever I come across such obvious stupidity it kills the story for me. Get the little details right, people! Let me enjoy my stories and enjoy my coffee (regardless of ambient)! * in defense of the Author, he is an older American, so can be excused for not really understanding the difference between coffee and the pale brown caffeinated beverage that shares that name in the States.

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To Read Or Not To Read, And Yet to Write—‘Tis A Conundrum Devoutly To Be Solved

I've heard of this phenomenon, but never before encountered it directly. Excuse me, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the utter vapidity of this... I have a MySpace page. Admittedly, I pay less attention to it these days in lieu of my Facebook page (all these Pages...for such a functional Luddite, it amazes me I navigate these strange seas), but I do check it at least once a week. I post a short blog there. And I collect Friend Requests. I received such a request the other day from someone whose name I will not use. Unless it's from someone or something I recognize, I go to the requester's page to check them out. Saves on a small amount of embarrassment. This person had a legit page. Aspiring writer. Claimed to be working on several short stories and a novel. Great. I'm all about supporting other writers. Sometimes we're all we've got. But I scrolled down to the section where he lists his interests and find under BOOKS this:

I actually don't read to much but I do like a few. Twilight, Harry Potter, Impulse, Dead on Town Line, etc.
I sat back and stared at that and the question ran through my head like a neon billboard, "How does that work? Just how the hell do you want to be a writer and not like to read?" So I sent this person a message and asked. I told him that to be a writer you have to love words, love stories... Well, here's the exchange, sans names:
Okay, you sent me a friend request, so I looked at your profile. It says you want to be a writer, but then under Books you say you don't read much. How does that work? You want to be a writer you have to love words, you have to love stories, you have to love it on the page, and that means reading A LOT. You might just blow this off, but don't. If you really want to be a writer, you must read. That's where you learn your craft, sure, but more importantly that's where you nurture the love of what you say you want to do.

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