Creativity (on Disney lacking imagination, the paradox of creativity, and art)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-thinkering/201112/twelve-things-you-were-not-taught-in-school-about-creative-thinking

"Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them."
-Michael Michalko

I have mixed feelings about that very first sentence in the quote. I love it but it also frustrates me beyond belief...it's like asking someone a question (i.e., What should I do with my life?) and having them give the best and worst, most helpful and most useless answer ever: What do you want/think?

(I have to admit, I myself am guilty of giving that answer!) 

I think it's necessary, though, this paradox. You have to let go of everything you think you know, and then sometimes, some knowledge - maybe something you had within you this whole time, maybe something outside finally makes an impact - enters and you create something new.

"Albert Einstein was expelled from school because his attitude had a negative effect on serious students; he failed his university entrance exam and had to attend a trade school for one year before finally being admitted; and was the only one in his graduating class who did not get a teaching position because no professor would recommend him. One professor said Einstein was "the laziest dog" the university ever had. Beethoven's parents were told he was too stupid to be a music composer. Charles Darwin's colleagues called him a fool and what he was doing "fool's experiments" when he worked on his theory of biological evolution. Walt Disney was fired from his first job on a newspaper because "he lacked imagination." Thomas Edison had only two years of formal schooling, was totally deaf in one ear and was hard of hearing in the other, was fired from his first job as a newsboy and later fired from his job as a telegrapher; and still he became the most famous inventor in the history of the U.S."
- Michael Michalko

Who else finds this paragraph inspiring? Walt Disney lacking imagination? Einstein being expelled? Charles Darwin, the fool? Quick, someone tell me I lack imagination and call me a fool!

"If you want to become an artist and all you did was paint a picture every day, you will become an artist. You may not become another Vincent Van Gogh, but you will become more of an artist than someone who has never tried."
- Michael Michalko

So true, right? So whatever it is that you want to do, do it a little bit every day. You never know what could happen. Not all artists are Van Goghs, not all writers are Shakespeare...so the hell what? They're still artists and writers, aren't they?

You have to be willing to be bad, and actually produce "bad" work, in order to get better. 

To lacking imaginations, being fools, and being "bad."