Creativity is making connections

In Sunday in the Park with George, Sondheim writes, “The art of making art is putting it together.” It’s forming the connections in yourself and your piece between all the component parts. Each one of those parts and connections is an opportunity to make a decision to create something new.

Creative works have output discontinuous with their input, like a system.

References

The Second Brain - A Life-Changing Productivity System . Directed by Ali Abdaal, 2020. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3dA2GcAh8.

Most creativity is about remixing things, not creating them from scratch. If you have all the little bits that resonate with you in one place, it’s easier to see connections.

Lui, Herbert. “Forget the Computer — Here’s Why You Should Write and Design by Hand.” Medium, 3 Aug. 2019, https://uxdesign.cc/forget-the-computer-heres-why-you-should-write-and-design-by-hand-19031089138f.

Steve Jobs said in an interview with Wired Magazine, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”