Really great insights into creativity and made me think about “design” in some profound ways. The book delves into those “glimmer” moments, when the mental process involved in problem solving (and that’s what design should be) reveals a new solution to an old problem. It also looks at design as a cultural phenomenon — a force of positive change in today’s world.
Several sections I found thoroughly engrossing, but one in particular stood out.
For me, design, creativity, problem solving – makes me intensely happy. Like few other things. I get an intense sense of joy, well being and frankly, sheer delight when I crack that nut. Coming up with an idea that elegantly solves a problem, makes me so happy. Whether it be some solution for a pack/pouch I’m working on, or even making something out of Lego – when it works, when some issue is resolved and it all comes together – it produces a level of delight that few things can match for me. They can be small things, but that process and that result fills me with a profound feeling of happiness. That whole groove you get into is wonderful. And if it’s something that is beneficial to the greater good, helpful to others – that’s mind melting.
Well the book discusses that very thing in one section.
People tend to think of happiness as a goal, but it’s more of a process, according to Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the former president of the American Psychological Association. Seligman maintains that there are two activities that lead to happiness. One is what he calls “engaging” activity–the challenging and often creative activity that tends to lead to a “flow experience.”
When you’re engaged in these types of creative activities, it activates an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens that controls how we feel about life, according to Dr. S. Ausim Azizi, chairman of the department of neurology at Temple University’s School of Medicine. He noted that creative activities that you enjoy also stimulate the brain’s septal zone–the “feel good” area–and that makes you feel happy.
But the other part of the puzzle has to do with the second type of activity that can make you happy. Seligman has observed that in addition to those “engaging” or creatively stimulating activities, there are also “meaningful” activities that tend to make people happy. These, he says, involve “using what you’re best at to serve others or participate in a cause bigger than yourself.”
If you’re doing a certain kind of design–“problem solving design”–you are combining both types of activities. You are creating and contributing to a larger cause, simultaneously.
Through constant acts of creative design, you recreate yourself. You help propel your own growth spiral, feeding off the energy of creation. That’s not just a feeling, it’s a fact: being in that state of “design flow” raises the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain, such as endorphins and dopamine, and that keeps you focussed and energized, according to Dr. Gabriella Corá of the Florida Neuroscience Center.Glimmer p.264-266
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