Creativity & The Menu Of Possibilities- This blog post is informed by conversations with Dr. Bruce Sawhill, Stanford educated theoretical physicist and mathematician.
Creativity & The Menu Of Possibilities
What’s on the menu?
Many of our blog posts address, in one way or another, the issue of search combined with the question of what to do next. Or in the language we’ve put forth in the last year, combinatorics, constraint, and the adjacent possible.
Since we claim that we live in a world where stepping into the adjacent possible affects the spectrum of possibilities that open up after that, the only concrete question in life is what to do next. Everything else is abstract.
But deciding what to do next requires an awareness of what we *can* do next. And this requires search.
Search for what? The search for:
- avenues of creative expression,
- the surprising and unique,
- the beautiful and inspirational,
- the functional and useful.
The Search For Meaning
And perhaps ultimately, the search for oneself- the search for a meaningful life.
Search is a central aspect of human life. One of the wealthiest companies on Earth was built to expedite finding things, at least things that could be put in a digitized format.
Search is an essential component of evolution. Search makes the adjacent possible.
It is essential to keep moving because there is no “forever” equilibrium where one can rest, wallow, and languish.
In the Ides of March blog post, we discussed The Minority Game, a simplified theoretical model of a process that never settles on a final answer. It is a simplified version of the game that all of Life is playing.
The biosphere, the sum of living things, is characterized by endless innovation and churn.
Lush rainforest floor
As part of that biosphere, we humans are exposed to this phenomenon as both perpetrators and subjects. It can be a bit schizophrenic at times.
The Role Of Decision
Whenever we are confronted with a decision about what to do next, we have a menu of possibilities.
But that menu is not fixed in stone, like Moses’ tablets. We often choose the menu, whether consciously or unconsciously.
The Power Of Constraint
This reminds us of a story of when Bruce taught at St. John’s College in New Mexico.
A fellow faculty member moonlighted by selling cars at a local dealership. He also had two small boys. His role as a father informed his effectiveness as a salesperson.
If a potential customer came to look at cars, he used to ask, “What’s your favorite color?”
He later changed his strategy to ask, “Do you like the red one or the blue one best?”
New cars in lot
He learned to *constrain* the menu of possibilities to match what was on hand, to purposefully trim the adjacent possible away so that customers wouldn’t ask for products that were not available.
He learned to do this with his children by only giving choices of what was available-“Would you like soup or a sandwich?”, rather than saying, “What would you like for lunch?”
Who Controls What Is On The Menu?
This kind of menu constraint has its place in the world of selling cars or feeding kids lunch, but there are definitely places where it is counterproductive.
The utility of controlling what is on the menu in creative endeavors is a double-edged sword.
You might retort, “The examples of the automotive customers and the hungry kids are instances of intentional manipulation by other people! Art is different than that.”
Alas, it is even worse. Nobody is better at manipulating ourselves than us.
As the cartoonist (remember cartoons?) Walt Kelly had his namesake character in the comic strip Pogo say,
We have met the enemy and he is us.
We want to surprise ourselves, to discover whole new worlds of expression, to explore the adjacent possible. This argues for a menu as large as possible. This is the enormous space of combinatorics.
But when we are in the act of creation, a completely unconstrained approach leads to chaos and noise, an outcome totally generic because it does not reflect choice and judgement.
The sum of all choices is no choice at all.
We are confronted with a paradox- We want as large a space of options as possible, including options we cannot even specify beforehand, but we need to decisively cut that huge space down to something manageable.
It seems like a lot of inefficiency and wasted effort, like counting sheep by counting all their legs and dividing by four.
Flock of Sheep
Couldn’t we just cut to the chase? Skip all that intermediate hugeness and go right to the good stuff?
It’s like an old saying about marriage:
There are three secrets to a good marriage. The problem is that nobody knows which three those are.
You only know in retrospect because of what you learned on the way.
As our frequent virtual contributor Søren Kierkegaard said,
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
As we have said before, wherever there is asymmetry something deeply interesting is going on, whether in the physical world, inside of our psyches or in our art.
So we want to decisively choose from a huge menu.
Sometimes closing your eyes and pointing is as good a strategy as any.
True creatives are always dining at places where much of the menu is in a foreign language, figuratively speaking.
Ancient writing on papyrus
With gratitude from my studio to yours,
Nancy
P.S. I’d like to share with you my new book trailer for The Artist’s Journey: Creativity Reflection Journal.
Get your copy HERE
Hi Nancy, Thanks for this timely piece ! I have been challenged by this question/problem
lately, sometimes the menu is overwhelming and I have been creating art that is mediocre
but I persist, sometimes I try lots of different things on the menu and am satisfied or not with the result. Anyway I shall continue to experiment even if all those adjacent possibilities
are on hiatus!
I have quite a few failed or unfinished watercolors. I have thought about using them for an underpaintings for an abstract with some realisium peaking through.What are your thoughts on that that?
I have been voyaging in the direction of writing and illustrating my drawings. The choices for me are limited due to illness, as I was once an oil painting enthusiast and now cannot tolerate the smell. I can use watered down acrylic paint or watercolors to illustrate without the odor, which I cannot tolerate. Also, I have begun using my 30 years of being a photographer to seat playing with manipulating my photos to create digital art. Wow, totally new experience, as well! Thus, this time of reflection away from the normality of my artistic life has opened an adjacent door of possibilities. I do not think I would have recognized this without the inspiration of your journal and your blog post the team of possibilities. So thank you Nancy for giving me thoughts in a completely new direction.💜
Thank you for this blog post, Nancy. As always great food for thought. I also love the Kierkegaard quote. In life as in art I often feel overwhelmed by possibilities and then freeze (procrastinate) – so one step at a time while mindfully using constraint is crucial for me to getting stuff done.
Thank you for these musings, Nancy! These thoughts are such a good match for my life (and art) right now! The concept that hindsight is 20/20 and we must continue forward speaks to me. I often look backwards in my art to things that used to work. But, as I’ve grown artistically, those same elements are no longer satisfying. It’s like the square peg in the round hole syndrome. Just not a good fit. Being true to where I am in the moment is key. Getting to that truth is both the challenge and the journey.
I usually start with a very vague idea of a glimpse I had in a dream, which makes no sense but as I continue it starts taking me on a voyage. I just finished a piece with a definite idea of a boat in misty waters as I finished I couldn’t stand it I am an abstract artist and was doing this for my guys. As I looked at my finished piece it was so boring to me that I started adding colors shapes without a clear idea in the end the realistic piece I started with came thru in a very abstract view which I now love, it feels alive. so having a inspiration to begin with is a plus! Hope this makes sense to you
Thank you Nancy. I always look forward do read your blog posts every Sunday.
Sometimes overwhelmed by stimulants, I simply apply an artificial either or choice— choose one and proceed. Then I make another choice, act upon it and move forward again. Artificial? Decidedly so but it puts the train on the tracks and the paint on the canvas. Often I apply a random, wild use of pencil crayon or paint (activating the surface) pausing when I feel as if I need to take a deep breath. Then I look for another either or choice ……and so it goes
GOOD AND INTERESTING INFORMATION, AS ALWAYS.
I HAVE FINALLY DECIDED NOT TO HIDE MY INSECURITIES ABOUT BEING A MAXIMALIST…I LOVE THE INTRCACIES OF PATTERN AND COLOR WOVEN TOGETHER LIKE A TAPESTRY. YES, CHAOS AND NOISE BUT I STILL HEAR THE BEAT. THANKS FOR HELPING ME TO REALIZE THAT APPROACH.
Hi Donna! Thank you. It’s wonderful to embrace what you love, your own true expression in your life cycle as an artist. Thank you for being here and for commenting.
Warmly,
Nancy
Does your painting process also work for people who paint figuratively? Figures emerged from my paintings, not necessarily by choice, they appeared and demanded to be painted!
Yes Karen! I love it! I’ve had that experience as well. I’ve been fascinated by the figure for years and it often emerges in my work unbidden, demanding to be painted just as you described!
Warmly,
Nancy