Habits of the Creative Mind

Boredom & Curiosity

I think that one of the most important ways we discover the world around us is by asking questions and discovering things on our own. It is beneficial to questions things as it might provide us with inspiration. When life starts to get boring you should break away from old habits and do new things.

Thinking Visually: Memory Recall

In class we practiced drawing works of art from famous artist’s, however we were only given a certain amount of time to do so. These drawings as well as the piece by Egon Schiele are the result of this exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Egon Schiele: Seeing Drawings Visually

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Looking and Looking Again: Observations of an Organic Object

     Over the course of two days I have watched my mind and developed some observations about the way it processes information and develops conclusions. When I read something I first skim the whole thing. I want to know what I’m getting myself into. If it’s a short story or reading for school I will make mental notes of the number of paragraphs and how long each paragraph is, or how many pages the chapter or book is. Usually this is the point where I feel over whelmed. I have some anxiety when I read or have a big task I need to complete, and I can get overwhelmed if I do not pace myself. Usually I will take a deep breath or do something like watching a short YouTube video or making tea. Then, when I start the reading I will feel more relaxed and less anxious. This process usually works for me. Something I’ve noticed is that I don’t feel as overwhelmed or anxious when I’m working on the computer. Let’s use this assignment as an example. If I had to write it in a notebook I feel like I would be less comfortable because I haven’t written schoolwork in a notebook for many months. This shows me that my mind associates notebooks with school, and since I didn’t like school for much of my youth it jumps to the conclusion that reading, writing, and school related material are negative things and activities that cause me stress. However despite this flow of negative thoughts and assumptions I have developed skills that allow me to handle my anxiety surrounding the work. In the case of how my mind works when I am browsing the web, I found that It works like a sequence. For me using the computer is natural. Sure there are things I don’t know but It makes sense to me. For example on class Thursday when we were struggling to make the blog I memorized the sequence of clicks that got us to the desired outcome, so when people needed help it was easy for me to explain to them what to do. If I had to teach someone to read and write the way I do I would tell them to first take into account everything you need to read or write, either plan things out on paper or in your head. Once you start to write, let the words flow. If the sentence doesn’t make sense, take a minute and think about different ways to say your thought. Some standards that I have when It comes to writing is that you must formulate sentences so that there are no unnecessary words or information. For example using the word “like”, or repeating the same thought in different sentences without elaborating on the overarching topic. This activity has deepened my understanding of how my mind operates and I will continue to watch my thoughts and discover new ways to deal with mental blockages.

Image Detectives: Visual Thinking Strategies

When talking about famous stutterers it is hard to ignore King George VI of England. He came to power in 1937 and was an important symbolic leader for Britain during world war 2. As a child, George VI developed a stammer and was often sick and scared easily. King George VI was born Albert Frederick Arthur George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha on December 14, 1895, in Norfolk, England. During the second world war, there were major innovations in communication technologies and for a king with a stammer, this was a nightmare. The suspected cause of his stammer was the verbal abuse he got from his father George V. George loathed public speaking and doing speeches were a big challenge for him. He also didn’t expect to become king, but his brother married an American woman, and subsequently, the throne was left to him. During his life, George sought out speech therapists, one of them being Lionel Logue, who taught George different breathing and speaking techniques. After years of speech therapy, George VI was able to address the nation clearly and delivered his iconic address to the nation in 1939 being Britons’ declaration of war against Germany.

My research process started with a quote by Dissanayake. Form there I looked at the headlines of different search results on google and clicked on the one that appealed to me the most. That happened to be art history so I started to read it and began to become immersed in the world of art history. As I was reading through the Wikipedia entry there were certain things that caught my eye. One of those things being Japanese and Asian art. Since I have had an interest in Japan for a long time, I jumped at the opportunity to read through it. The entry talked about how Japanese art reflects its rich cultural history. What caught my eye in this section was that it mentions the first settlers of Japan the Jomon people. I never heard about this group of people before, and being the original people of Japan I had to know more about them. What stood out to me about these peoples were their hyper-stylized clay dolls. Upon further reading, it was revealed that these dolls were used in sentimental magic rituals. These figures are called Dogu and it was believed that you could transfer any illness and misfortune onto it. If they were destroyed it would clear the illness and any other misfortune. For whatever reason, the image of a masterpiece appeared in my mind and I began to have thoughts associating the clay figures with the marble statues of the renaissance. These statues were known to be masterpieces so I looked up masterpieces on Wikipedia. The entry presented me with many great works such as the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo and the Mona Lisa by Leonardo De Vinci. The Creation of Adam specifically piqued my interest and I decided to look more into it. Upon reading the Wikipedia entry I Began to have thoughts relating to the origin myth of humanity. It occurred to me that masterpieces of this caliber have a special effect that immerses you into the image and overwhelms you with blissful feelings of wonder and spirituality. The Creation of Adam is a representation of the origin myth of humanity, portrayed wonderfully by a legendary artist. Upon digging further I stumbled upon the concept of Eternal return. This concept really intrigued me, as it talked about how this is a belief expressed through behavior that a person is able to return to the mythical age designated in one’s spiritual mythos. At the end of this rabbit hole I found myself going back to the Creation of Adam and how much religious significance it has as it relates to the history of art and the insight that throughout our evolution as a species, we have been through many different periods of growth. During this time we have created myths that have turned into religions and these religions became the inspiration for many artistic masterpieces. Within these great works of classical art is an underlying idea of romanticism and a “mythical age”. Through artist’s interpretations of this age, it presents a desirable image of the past that some people today wish to return to.

Some research strategies I found helpful were

• Judging the scope of the project
• Write and organize useful notes and keep track of sources
• Use information effectively for a specific purpose
• Reading a lot of the article entry before moving on to something else
• Paraphrasing

Practice Session One: Writing

I was never very political. During my years at home before college, my parents didn’t talk about the government. So, I was left to make my own decision about the world around me without the influence of others. However, during the 2016 presidential election that changed, as it changed for many people. That election saw a shift in the way I viewed politics and our government. During the Obama administration, people around me praised the president. He was well-spoken, respectful, charismatic, and beat the odds by becoming the first African American president. Although I do not know much about his policies, I did very much respect him as a leader and individual. When Trump was elected, even without the influence of others, I thought he was a very arrogant, mean spirited person. I did not like him one bit. As his time in office came to a close and I entered college I was taken aback by how liberal my school, and I began to adopt the Trump-hating rhetoric. It was easy for me because I already didn’t like him, however, my roommate was a different story. As I spent more time with him I began to understand his philosophy, and his centrist point of view began making sense. His problem with the current political climate is that it was fueled too much by hate and bias. He wondered why people stopped having civil discussions and got upset when someone didn’t take into account the other side’s point of view. Living with him made me a more compassionate, understanding person. Although we have our differences, I try to adopt his philosophy when I am angry at the news or government.

Practicing/ On Self-Curation

How has media played in role in the coverage and interpretation of Covid-19?

During the early days of the pandemic, the news media picked up coverage very quickly. At first, the U.S. didn’t take it too seriously. However, once we heard about Europe and how it devastated Italy, we began to have a much better understanding of what we were dealing with. Mainstream media news outlets like CNN and FOX gave daily Covid updates when it entered the U.S., with public health officials such as Dr. Fauci giving periodic briefings on what people can do to control the spread of the virus. After President Trump declared a national emergency many new regulations began to be enforced. Businesses began to shut down one after another, and the economy tanked. People like President Trump began publicly downplaying the virus on the news, telling the American people it was under control and we will recover. News stations like FOX and other independent journals followed this rhetoric and was a contributor in making Covid sound less serious than it actually was, downplaying the severity of the cases, and causing a divide in the public consciousness. People began believing conspiracy theories and, like President Trump, discussed outlandish theories like Q-Anon which was picked up by FOX. This played an even bigger role in the public divide as people were now beginning to doubt science. U.S. media began to blow up with conspiracies and false information, and it got so bad that many websites began fact-checking even faster than before to try and stop the spread of false information. President Trump’s presence on social media didn’t help either, with him making blatantly false statements and causing confusion amongst U.S. citizens. Since this is an ongoing problem, news outlets are constantly covering new information which may or may not be false. Hopefully, there are trustworthy fact-checkers that care about the American public and don’t try to twist the public narrative of the disease. Recently with Joe Biden becoming the president-elect, there is going to be a new focus on the scientific understanding go the disease, unlike President Trump who wanted to Fire Dr. Fauci for spreading misinformation. These two points of view starkly contrast each other,  causing a rift in public understanding that can become dangerous.

Why do some responses to Covid get picked up, shared, and repeated, while others are ignored?

The internet has had a major role in the Covid-19 pandemic. It has caused stories, true and false, to become the center of attention and has exposed them to thousands of people. When a story is interesting or shocking it gets attention, while the mundane, and often true, stories get pushed to the side. This is a problem, not of the media or the companies that control it, but of human nature. When people see something exciting they are drawn towards it, however, there has to be another force to control it. This is why fake news and misinformation are a problem. There is so much of it and not enough people to keep track. Other reasons why some responses to Covid are picked up and others are ignored is because the articles and stories in questions are either blatantly false, or people know not to believe them. People must become aware of what is and what isn’t fake. This ties into another problem which is people’s inability to distinguish between right and wrong sources of information on the internet. An easy fix would be to have everyone take a course on the dangers of false online news, however, at the moment this seems to be out of the question. In the end, it all comes down to what people are willing to believe and their ability to distinguish fiction from reality.