Creative Versus Conventional

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve.” -Albert Einstein.

Human intelligence is the capacity for learning and understanding, for grasping truths and relationships, facts and meanings.

What we have conventionally been taught to think of as ‘intelligence’ is only a small fraction of what the human brain is capable of.

• Conventional intelligence communicates through thoughts, concepts, opinions and ideas. Creative intelligence also communicates through feelings, emotions, imaginings and intuitions.
• Conventional intelligence reasons and critiques; creative intelligence absorbs and explores.
• Conventional intelligence aims to control; creative intelligence to allow.
• Conventional intelligence categorises; creative intelligence ‘breaks the box’.
• Conventional intelligence looks out, seeing human reality as material and fixed (shit happens!). Creative intelligence looks in, seeing human reality as imagined and co-created (shift happens!).
• Conventional intelligence persuades through intellectual opinion and argument. Creative intelligence persuades through story, symbol and song.
• Conventional intelligence consumes art, writing and music as entertainment. Creative intelligence creates art, writing and music as expression.
• Conventional intelligence likes answers; creative intelligence likes questions.
• Conventional intelligence sees failure as a disappointment and a defeat. Creative intelligence sees failure as necessary and a learning opportunity.

While conventional, rational, analytical intelligence is often contrasted to creative intelligence, that’s actually like setting your right foot against your left. They are designed to work together.

Nobody would tell you that your left foot is more important to walking than your right — but rational and analytical brain power is privileged by schools, workplaces and other institutions.

Which is why as you go through life, trying to make something of yourself, you feel constrained or frustrated. It’s as if you were trying to walk with one foot tied behind your back.

Understanding, owning and honing your creative intelligence opens you to the world, and the world to you, in a whole new way.

Two Practices to help cultivate creative intelligence are: F-R-E-E-Writing and Inspiration Meditation.