Tension is the drawn bow of creativity. When you apply a stimulation of
some kind to a problem, you create psychological tensions that prod the
mind into action. We have a deep need to resolve tensions in our lives and
our subconscious will happily lend a hand to make the go away. So now you
know the awful truth. Go twang that bow!
See also
constraints, mind, incubation, necessity, stimulation*, thinking, truth,
vision
Quotes
‘Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources
are than we had supposed.’
— William Blake
‘How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have hope of making
some progress.’
— Niels Bohr
‘Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to
concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a
sense of self.’
— Erich Fromm
‘It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched
souls make music.’
— Eric Hoffer
‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
‘There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul
than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse.’
— Eric Hoffer
‘Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.’
— Chuck Jones
‘It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist
together in their highest perfection.’
— Thomas Macauley
‘It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often
about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.’
— Henry Moore
‘Nearly 100% of innovation—from business to politics—is inspired not by
"market analysis" but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things
are.’
— Tom Peters
‘The true genius shudders at incompleteness.’
— Edgar Allen Poe
‘The life of the most creative man is led, directed and controlled by
boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.’
— Saul Steinberg
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