Thinking Out of the Box: How Physical Experience Enhances Creativity

Huffington Post:

When Hollywood producer Steven Spielberg was working on his 1977 hit movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” he spent long hours puzzling over the artistic texture of the film, trying to get just the right feel. Late one night, he decided to put his work aside and take a drive to clear his head. He headed up Hollywood Hill to one of the vistas overlooking Los Angeles and — impulsively, for no reason at all — he did a hand-stand on the roof of his car. With his perspective on the illuminated LA cityscape turned topsy-turvy, he “saw” what would become the alien visitors’ spacecraft.

This Hollywood legend may be apocryphal, but creativity gurus love it anyway. Creative thinking is the lifeblood of every intellectual enterprise, from the arts to commerce, yet it remains elusive. There is no on-off switch, no simple formula — in short, no reliable path to novel and useful ideas. This leaves a lot of room for charlatans and gimmicks — and hand-stands are far from the strangest.

Read the whole story: Huffington Post