Page 197 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

188 MIND FARMING

Surprisingly, thinking and doing are two concepts that are often
confused when discussing creativity. Imagination, ingenuity, and inno-
vation are, of course, all in the realm of thinking. The execution of the
ideas that emerge from creative thinking is mostly in the doing realm—
in which we use our eyes, hands, arms, backs, and legs.
As we discussed earlier, people often confuse these realms. “I’m not
creative. I can’t draw a straight line,” we often hear. Or, here’s another
misconception: “Listen to her sing. Isn’t she creative?” Not necessarily.
Drawing and singing are in the doing realm, where very little creativ-
ity occurs. Songwriting, but not singing, is in the thinking realm.
Drawing a straight line requires no creativity. It requires talent, maybe
skill, but it’s not an example of creativity because it’s not thinking of
something new. As we discussed in Chapter 4 our society has somehow
twisted the term creativity to mean “artistic.” Most art is the result of
talent, “doing,” unless it’s based on an original idea, in which case it’s
an expression of creativity, an expression of the original idea that hap-
pened in the thinking realm. There are exceptions, such as abstract
painting, where the artist “does” usually without preconceptions.
Now, all this discussion of the thinking realm forces another dis-
tinction: creative thinking versus rational thinking, or new ideas versus
old ideas. As Einstein put it, imagination versus knowledge, what
might be versus what is.
In the same way we need to be clear on the two modes of thinking,
we need to distinguish between the two modes of doing: crafting, or
doing with care, and laboring, or just knocking it out. Together, these
four basic modes of function
comprise the spectrum of cre-
ative thinking types within
which all people function.
They also denote the four
basic animals that Mind
Farmers must cultivate.
Let’s examine these dif-
ferent animals and discuss
the distinct dimensions that
define them. For this up-
close examination, we start
at the bottom right of this
creative typologies map,
and working clockwise
toward the top left, we iden- The four basic Mind Farming personality types.