How creativity works

Recently, I bought the book Inspiration by the Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis. Dijksterhuis is not only an outstanding psychologist but also a good writer, who well knows how to explain themes of general interest to a lay public. I bought the book because I find the theme interesting. For isn’t it interesting to read how your mind works, if you are a creative author? (In the end I wrote already almost thousand blogs plus a lot of other stuff, like articles and books; see this blog page) Moreover, I am also a photographer, and I always try to see the world around me in a new light and then to capture my view in a picture, hoping that others will grasp it (which not always happens). That’s one reason, why I bought the book: understanding myself. However, I bought it also because I am always looking for stuff for my blogs and I think that this book will certainly give me inspiration for a few blogs (and this is the first one). However. I haven’t had yet the time to read it, so I can only promise to write about it later, but I got the idea that it might be interesting to write here, how I think that I become inspired, and then I can later compare my ideas with Dijksterhuis’s expert view on the matter.
When you have already ideas popping up in your mind, it’s not so difficult to elaborate them, especially when you are an experienced writer, artist, photographer, etc. However, it’s more difficult to get inspiration when your head is empty, so to speak, and you urgently need inspiration, because there is a deadline. Also, for me, it can happen that I urgently need ideas, but as you can see, I always got my inspiration in time, for in those sixteen years that I am writing these blogs, I never missed my self-imposed deadlines (the rare occasions that I didn’t write my weekly blog happened always for particular reasons). Indeed, sometimes it’s time to write a new blog, but I don’t know what to write. Normally it is so that my mind is always attentive to certain things, and usually it is so that a new idea pops up in my mind automatically, if it fits the existing structure of what is already there in my brain, and so I get a new theme: A new idea is a new element that fits with what’s already there. But now and then, it doesn’t work.
Since I am also a photographer, I always watch the world around me not only with a philosophical eye but also with a photographic eye. Since my mind is also full of photographic themes, this makes that it often happens that a photographic idea pops up in my mind. It can be that I see a photographic object, and then I get my camera and take a photo. It’s in this way that most photos like these came about. Or it is, for example that I got the idea for a new photo project, and so photos like these were realized; or I just got the idea for a single photo. The photos of the latter link are also a bit accidental in the sense that it is difficult to plan them; you must simply have the idea of the theme in your mind and then take the pic at the moment you happen to pass the right object or scene. However, photos can also be planned, like those under this link.
So I got the ideas for my blogs and for my photos more or less in the same way. The difference is that the ideas for my photos often pop up when I am walking somewhere, or anyway when I am outdoors, while the ideas for my blogs often pop up when I am reading. Since I am an avid reader, there is a big chance that the week before I write a new blog, a useful idea settles itself in my mind. Maybe, it does when I am reading a newspaper, maybe it is when I am reading a book; though it can also happen when I am watching TV, or doing something else which has no relation to my blogs. And when I have too many ideas, I write them down for later. Anyway, both for photography and for writing, the essence is (at least for me) that I must have already a certain mental structure in my mind and I must be attentive. After all those years, that mental structure is certainly there, but I am continually busy (consciously or without being aware of it) to extend and to develop it.
Nevertheless, sometimes my mind lacks creativity. It’s empty, so to speak, and I don’t know what to write about. But no problem, there are tricks for this case. Since my study is full of books, especially philosophy books, I take one or a few that might be useful. Then it soon happens that I get an idea. For that’s how creativity works. Or in the case of photography, I just take my camera and go out. For if you have already a photographic mental structure in your brain, certainly soon a new idea will come up. But don’t think that inspiration can take place in an empty space. In an empty mind nothing can pop up. No thing comes from nothing. From nothing comes nothing.
What remains now is a promise: A blog about Dijksterhuis’s book.