Chapter 1: Thinking

— Robert Browning

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?"

Mindlessness Versus Mindfulness

"Each of us desires to share with others our vision of the world, only most of us have been taught that it's wrong to do things differently or look at things differently," says John Briggs. "We lose confidence in ourselves and begin to look at reality only in terms of the categories by which society orders it." This is the state of routinized conformity and passive learning that Harvard professor of psychology Ellen Langer calls, appropriately enough, mindlessness. For it is the state of denying the perceptions and promptings of our own minds, our individual selves. Langer and her colleagues' extensive research over the past 15 years has shown that when we act mindlessly, we behave automatically and limit our capacity for creative response. Mired down in a numbing daily routine, we may virtually relinquish our capacity for independent thought and action. By contrast, Langer refers to a life in which we use our affective, responsive, perceptive faculties as "mindful." When we are mindful, her research has shown, we avoid rigid, reflexive behavior in favor of a more improvisational and intuitive response to life. We notice and feel the world around us and then act in accordance with our feelings. "Many, if not all, of the qualities that make up a mindful attitude are characteristic of creative people," Langer writes in her new book, Mindfulness. "Those who can free themselves of mindsets, open themselves to new information and surprise, play with perspective and context, and focus on process rather than outcome are likely to be creative, whether they are scientists, artists, or cooks." Much of Langer's research has demonstrated the vital relationship between creativity and uncertainty, or conditionality. For instance, in one experiment, Langer and Alison Piper introduced a collection of objects to one group of people by saying, "This is a hair dryer," and "This is a dog's chew toy," and so on. Another group was told, "This could be a hair dryer," and "This could be a dog's chew toy." Later, the experimenters for both groups invented a need for an eraser, but only those people who had been conditionally introduced to the objects thought to use the dog's toy in this new way. The intuitive understanding that a single thing is, or could be, many things, depending on how you look at it, is at the heart of the attitude Langer calls mindfulness. But can such an amorphous state be cultivated? Langer believes that it can, by consciously discarding the idea that any given moment of your day is fixed in its form. "I teach people to 'componentize' their lives into smaller pieces," she says. "In the morning, instead of mindlessly downing your orange juice, taste it. Is it what you want? Try something else if it isn't. When you walk to work, turn left instead of right. You'll notice the street you're on, the buildings and the weather. Mindfulness, like creativity, is nothing more than a return to who you are. By minding your responses to the world, you will come to know yourself again. How you feel. What you want. What you want to do."

Over 2,500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Socrates cautioned

"The unexamined life is not worth living," underscoring the insight that when we don't make use of our distinctive human capacity to think deeply and act intelligently, our lives have diminished meaning. In a warning that is at least as relevant today as it was when he first spoke it, Socrates cautioned his fellow citizens of Athens: "You, my friend—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?"

This question may have stimulated any number of responses:

- Because I want to pursue a fulfilling career. - Because all of my friends enrolled in college. - Because my parents insisted that I go to college in order to get a good job.

What we will be learning in this textbook

- Establishing and achieving your goals (Chapter 1) - Becoming an intelligent and effective decision-maker (Chapter 1) - Becoming a confident and productive creative thinker (Chapter 1) - Becoming an independent, informed, and open-minded critical thinker (Chapter 2) - Learning to analyze and discuss complex, controversial ideas in an organized fashion (Chapter 2) - Becoming a powerful and successful problem solver (Chapter 3) - Becoming familiar with the perceptual "lenses" through which you view the world, and understanding the way these lenses shape and influence your entire experience (Chapter 4) - Learning to develop informed, well-supported beliefs and achieve authentic knowledge of important issues (Chapter 5) - Learning to critically analyze information and images presented in the media, the Internet, and popular culture (Chapter 5) - Developing your ability to understand and use language effectively in order to express your ideas clearly and coherently (Chapter 6) - Learning to form and apply concepts in order to understand the world in a clear, sophisticated way (Chapter 7) - Developing your ability to relate and organize concepts in complex thinking patterns (Chapter 8) - Learning to think critically about ethical issues and moral beliefs (Chapter 9) - Learning to construct logically valid and compelling arguments to support your point of view (Chapter 10) - Learning to evaluate the soundness of deductive and inductive arguments and detect illogical ways of thinking ("fallacies") (Chapters 10, 11) - Developing your ability to make enlightened choices and work toward creating a meaningful and fulfilling life (Chapter 12) Of course, these abilities do not operate in isolation from one another; instead, they work together in complex patterns and relationships. For example, in the remainder of this first chapter, we're going to explore three core areas that are central to being an accomplished thinker and living a successful, fulfilling life: - Establishing and achieving your goals - Becoming an intelligent and effective decision-maker - Becoming a confident and productive creative thinker

You Are the Artist of Your Life

In what ways does this metaphor help you understand your personal development? In what ways does it highlight the role of personal responsibility in your life? Although Chuck Close suffered a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 that left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors. What life lessons can we learn from the way he has responded to adversity? We all have our own unique challenges to meet in order to find our life path, just as Chuck Close has overcome physical disability to achieve great success. What choices will you have to make in order to reach your full potential as a person?

immediate or "short-term" goals

Identifying immediate or "short-term" goals tends to be a fairly simple procedure.

Analyzing a Previous Decision

1. Think back on an important decision you made that turned out well. Describe the experience as specifically as possible. 2. Reconstruct the reasoning process that you used to make your decision. Did you: Clearly define the decision to be made and the related issues? - Consider various choices and anticipate the consequences of these various choices? - Gather additional information to help in your analysis? - Evaluate the various pros and cons of different courses of action? - Use a chart or diagram to aid in your deliberations? - Create a specific plan of action to implement your ideas? - Periodically review your decision to make necessary adjustments?

Analyzing a Goal That You Achieved

1. Describe an important goal that you recently achieved. 2. Identify the steps you had to take to achieve this goal in the order in which they were taken, and estimate the amount of time each step took. 3. Describe how you felt when you achieved your goal.

Combating the "Voice of Criticism"

1. Take a small notebook or pad with you one day and record every self-defeating criticism that you make about yourself. At the end of the day, classify your self-criticisms by category, such as negative self-criticism about your physical appearance, your popularity with others, or your academic ability. 2. Analyze the self-criticisms in each of the categories and try to determine where they came from and how they developed. 3. Use the strategies described in this section, and others of your own creation, to start fighting these self-criticisms when they occur.

Questions for Analysis

1. According to the authors, "Creativity ... is the search for the elusive 'Aha,' that moment of insight when one sees the world, or a problem, or an idea, in a new way." Describe an "aha" moment that you have had recently, detailing the origin of your innovative idea and how you implemented it. 2. Identify some of the influences in your life that have inhibited your creative development, including the "myths" about creativity that are described in the article. 3. Using the ideas contained in this chapter and in this article, identify some of the strategies that you intend to use in order to become more creative in your life—for example, becoming more mindful, destroying the voice of criticism, and creating an atmosphere more conducive to creativity.

Describing a Creative Area

1. Describe a creative area of your life in which you are able to express your unique personality and talents. Be specific and give examples. 2. Analyze your creative area by answering the following questions: - Why do you feel that this activity is creative? Give examples. - How would you describe the experience of being engaged in this activity? Where do your creative ideas come from? How do they develop? - What strategies do you use to increase your creativity? What obstacles block your creative efforts? - - How do you try to overcome these blocks?

Describing Your Current and Future Self

1. Describe a portrait of yourself as a person. What sort of person are you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? In what areas do you feel you are creative? 2. Describe some of the ways you would like to change yourself.

Analyzing a Future Decision

1. Describe an important decision in your academic or personal life that you will have to make in the near future. 2. Using the five-step decision-making approach we just described, analyze your decision and conclude with your "best" choice.

Allow time for ideas to incubate

After absorbing yourself in the task or problem, the next stage in the creative process is to stop working on the task or problem. Even when your conscious mind has stopped actively working on a task, the unconscious dimension of your mind continues working—processing, organizing, and ultimately generating innovative ideas and solutions. This process is known as incubation because it mirrors the process in which baby chicks gradually evolve inside the egg until the moment comes when they break through the shell. In the same way, your creative mind is at work while you are going about your business until the moment of illumination, when the incubating idea finally erupts to the surface of your conscious mind. People report that these illuminating moments—when their mental light bulbs go on—often occur when they are engaged in activities completely unrelated to the task. One of the most famous cases was that of the Greek thinker Archimedes, whose moment of illumination came while he was taking a bath, causing him to run naked through the streets of Athens shouting "Eureka" ("I have found it").

Establish a Creative Environment

An important part of eliminating the negative voices in our minds is to establish environments in which our creative resources can flourish. This means finding or developing physical environments conducive to creative expression as well as supportive social environments. Sometimes working with other people stimulates and energizes our creative juices; at other times we require a private place where we can work without distraction. For example, I have a specific location in which I do much of my writing: sitting at my desk, with a calm, pleasing view of the Hudson River, music on the iPod, a cold drink, and a supply of roasted almonds and Jelly Bellies. I'm ready for creativity to strike me, although I sometimes have to wait for some time! Different environments work for different people. You have to find the environment(s) best suited to your own creative process and then make a special effort to do your work there. The people in our lives who form our social environment play an even more influential role in encouraging or inhibiting our creative process. When we are surrounded by people who are positive and supportive, they increase our confidence and encourage us to take the risk to express our creative vision. They can stimulate our creativity by providing us with fresh ideas and new perspectives. By engaging in brainstorming, they can work with us to generate ideas and then later help us figure out how to refine and implement the most valuable ones. However, when the people around us tend to be negative, critical, or belittling, the opposite happens: We lose confidence and are reluctant to express ourselves creatively. Eventually, we begin to internalize these negative criticisms, incorporating them into our own VOC. When this occurs, we have the choice of telling people that we will not tolerate this sort of destructive behavior or, if they can't improve their behavior, removing them from our lives. Of course, sometimes this is difficult because we work with them or they are related to us. In this case we have to work at diminishing their negative influence and spend more time with those who support us.

Analyzing an Important Future Goal

Apply some of the insights we have been examining with regard to working toward goals to a situation in your own life. 1. Describe as specifically as possible an important longer-term goal that you want to achieve. Your goal can be academic, professional, or personal. 2. Explain the reasons that led you to select the goal that you did and why you believe that your goal makes sense. 3. Identify both the major and minor steps you will have to take to achieve your goal. List your steps in the order in which they need to be taken and indicate how much time you think each step will take. Make your responses as specific and precise as possible. 4. Identify some of the sacrifices that you may have to make in the present in order to achieve your future goal.

Images and "Reading"

As you come across visual images to use in your essays, reports, and arguments, remember that the content of an image—just like the content of a text—comprises elements that work together to convey a message. Some of these elements are similar to those you consider when evaluating a piece of writing: setting, point of view, relationships between characters, and perspective (objective or subjective). Other elements are specifically visual: how color is used, how images are manipulated in a graphics editor such as Adobe Photoshop, how images are cropped (or cut), and how images are arranged on a page or screen. Also important, of course, is how the text that accompanies images describes and contextualizes what you are seeing; this text, called a caption, should also be a part of your critical interpretation of visual evidence.

Chuck Thomas Close

Born July 5, 1940, Monroe, Washington he is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist through his massive-scale portraits. How does this self-portrait change when viewed from a distance versus close up? The writer Oscar Wilde once said, "The only normal people are the ones you don't know well." How do people look different from a distance versus close up?

Malcolm X

Born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of an activist Baptist preacher, Malcolm X saw racial injustice and violence from a very young age. His father, Earl Little, was outspoken in his support for the Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey; as a result, the family was the target of harassment and was forced to move frequently. In 1931, Earl Little's body was found on the town's trolley tracks. Although the local police dismissed it as an accident, Earl Little's death was believed to have been a murder committed by white supremacists. Malcolm dropped out of high school after a teacher's contemptuous discouragement of his ambitions to become a lawyer. For the next several years, he moved between Boston and New York, becoming profitably involved in various criminal activities. After being convicted of burglary in Boston, he was sentenced to prison. There he began writing letters to former friends and various government officials. His frustration in trying to express his ideas led him to a course of self-education, described in the following excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X. After his release from prison, Malcolm converted to Islam and rose to prominence in the Nation of Islam. A pilgrimage he made to Saudi Arabia led him to begin working toward healing and reconciliation for Americans of all races. Unfortunately, the enemies he had made and the fears he had provoked did not leave Malcolm X much time to share this message. Three assassins gunned him down as he spoke at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on February 15, 1965.

Absorb yourself in the task

Creative ideas don't occur in a vacuum. They emerge after a great deal of work, study, and practice. For example, if you want to come up with creative ideas in the kitchen, you need to become knowledgeable about the art of cooking. The more knowledgeable you are, the better prepared you are to create valuable and innovative dishes. Similarly, if you are trying to develop a creative perspective for a research paper in college, you need to immerse yourself in the subject, developing an in-depth understanding of the central concepts and issues. Absorbing yourself in the task "prepares the soil" for your creative ideas.

Images, Creative Thinking, and Problem Solving

Creative thinking teaches us that information can be experienced and communicated in many different ways. When you use any of the creative or critical approaches to problem solving discussed in this book, try to incorporate visual as well as verbal descriptions and information. You could collect images from magazines, books, and online sources and print them out or scan them electronically to create a kind of visual "mind map." Or you could look online at sites such as the National Archives, Flickr, and Google Images, all of which allow you to search for images using key words related to your task.

Original Spin by Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin

Creativity, somebody once wrote, is the search for the elusive "Aha," that moment of insight when one sees the world, or a problem, or an idea, in a new way. Traditionally, whether the discovery results in a cubist painting or an improved carburetor, we have viewed the creative instant as serendipitous and rare—the product of genius, the property of the elect. Unfortunately, this attitude has had a number of adverse consequences. It encourages us to accept the myth that the creative energy society requires to address its own problems will never be present in sufficient supply. Beyond that, we have come to believe that "ordinary" people like ourselves can never be truly creative. As John Briggs, author of Fire in the Crucible: The Alchemy of Creative Genius, said, "The way we talk about creativity tends to reinforce the notion that it is some kind of arbitrary gift. It's amazing the way 'not having it' becomes wedded to people's self-image. They invariably work up a whole series of rationalizations about why they 'aren't creative,' as if they were damaged goods of some kind." Today, however, researchers are looking at creativity, not as an advantage of the human elite, but as a basic human endowment. As Ruth Richards, a psychiatrist and creativity researcher at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA, says, "You were being creative when you learned how to walk. And if you are looking for something in the fridge, you're being creative because you have to figure out for yourself where it is." Creativity, in Richards' view, is simply fundamental to getting about in the world. It is "our ability to adapt to change. It is the very essence of human survival." In an age of rampant social and technological change, such an adaptive capability becomes yet more crucial to the individual's effort to maintain balance in a constantly shifting environment. "People need to recognize that what Alvin Toffler called future shock is our daily reality," says Ellen McGrath, a clinical psychologist who teaches creativity courses at New York University. "Instability is an intrinsic part of our lives, and to deal with it every one of us will need to find new, creative solutions to the challenges of everyday life." But can you really become more creative? If the word creative smacks too much of Picasso at his canvas, then rephrase the question in a less intimidating way: Do you believe you could deal with the challenges of life in a more effective, inventive, and fulfilling manner? If the answer is yes, then the question becomes, "What's stopping you?"

Avoiding the Myths

David Perkins, co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, asks in The Mind's Best Work, "When you have it—creativity, that is—what do you have?" The very impalpability of the subject means that often creativity can be known only by its products. Indeed, the most common way the researchers define creativity is by saying it is whatever produces something that is: a. original; b. adaptive (i.e., useful); c. meaningful to others. But because we don't understand its genesis, we're often blocked or intimidated by the myths that surround and distort this mercurial subject.

Identifying Creative Blocks

Discovering your creative talents requires that you understand how the creative process operates and then have confidence in the results it produces. No fixed procedures or formulas exist for generating creative ideas, because creative ideas by definition go beyond established ways of thinking to the unknown and the innovative. As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, "You must expect the unexpected, because it cannot be found by search or trail." Although no fixed path leads to creative ideas, you can pursue activities that make the birth of creative ideas possible. In this respect, generating creative ideas is similar to gardening. You need to prepare the soil; plant the seeds; ensure proper water, light, and food; and then be patient until the ideas begin to sprout. Here are some steps for cultivating your creative garden:

Examining critical thinking and creative thinking

Examining critical thinking and creative thinking is a rich and complex enterprise. These two dimensions of the thinking process are so tightly interwoven that both must be addressed together in order to understand them individually. For example, you can use your creative thinking abilities to visualize your ideal future. With this idea as a starting point, you can then use your critical thinking abilities to refine your idea and research existing opportunities. Once a clear goal is established, you can use your creative thinking abilities to generate possible ideas for achieving this goal, while your critical thinking abilities can help you evaluate your various options and devise a practical, organized plan. It is apparent that creative thinking and critical thinking work as partners to produce productive and effective thinking, thus enabling us to make informed decisions and lead successful lives. As this text unfolds, you will be given the opportunity to become familiar with both of these powerful forms of thought as you develop your abilities to think both critically and creatively.

Images and Learning

In college, you will often be asked to present information in a visual manner. Classes in the sciences and social sciences require you to present numerical data in the form of charts, graphs, and maps. In the visual arts and humanities, you may be asked to analyze a painting's message and style or to describe a film director's approach to setting a scene. As you read your textbooks, study your instructor's PowerPoint slides, and conduct your own research, be sure that you understand the point of visual information and how it complements written information. In addition, be sure to ask your instructor for each of your classes how to locate, correctly cite, and usefully include images in your own essays and research papers.

Creative "Crowdsourcing"

Following up on ZTE's clever use of crowdsourcing to generate new products, try some crowdsourcing of your own to generate innovative ideas to improve the quality of your life. Reach out to your network of friends and ask them for creative ideas, then compile these into a master list that you share with everyone. (Be sure to give credit!). Here are some possible topics: - Ideas for organizing the many activities in your life more efficiently - Ideas for resisting procrastination - Ideas for making studying more entertaining and effective - Ideas for having a party with a totally unique theme

Seize on the ideas when they emerge and follow them through

Generating creative ideas is of little use unless you recognize them when they appear and then act on them. Too often people don't pay much attention to these ideas when they occur, or they dismiss them as too impractical. You must have confidence in the ideas you create, even if they seem wacky or far-out. Many of the most valuable inventions in our history started as improbable ideas, ridiculed by popular wisdom. For example, the idea for Velcro started with burrs covering the pants of the inventor as he walked through a field, and Post-it Notes resulted from the accidental invention of an adhesive that was weaker than normal. In other words, thinking effectively means thinking creatively and thinking critically. After you use your creative thinking abilities to generate innovative ideas, you then must apply your critical thinking abilities to evaluate and refine the ideas and design a practical plan for implementing them.

Questions for Analysis

In describing how he worked toward the goals of becoming literate and knowledgeable, Malcolm X touches on a variety of important issues related to developing thinking and language abilities. We can analyze some of the issues raised by responding to the following exercises: 1. Malcolm X describes the process of how learning words from a dictionary sparked a hunger for learning that led to his being able to "pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying." Explain the importance of his hunger for knowledge in terms of how it affected his life. 2. Malcolm X envied one of the other inmates, Bimbi, because his stock of knowledge enabled him to take charge of any conversation he was in. Explain why knowledge—and our ability to use it—leads to power in our dealings with others. Describe a situation from your own experience in which having expert knowledge about a subject enabled you to influence the thinking of other people. 3. Malcolm X also states about pursuing his studies in prison that "up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life." Explain what you think he means by this statement.

Make Creativity a Priority

Having diminished the voice of negative judgment in your mind, established a creative environment, and committed yourself to trusting your creative gifts, you are now in a position to live more creatively. How do you actually do this? Start small. Identify some habitual patterns in your life and break out of them. Choose new experiences whenever possible—for example, ordering unfamiliar items on a menu or getting to know people outside your circle of friends—and strive to develop fresh perspectives in your life. Resist falling back into the ruts you were previously in by remembering that living things are supposed to be continually growing, changing, and evolving, not acting in repetitive patterns like machines.

"Human Sex Trafficking"

Human trafficking for sexual purposes is an international evil involving an estimated 25 million women and children a year, a $35 billion industry that reaches to every corner of the world. The United States is not immune to this evil: an estimated 45,000-50,000 women and children are caught in the snare of human trafficking every year. Of those victims who are found and released, 83% are American citizens. So the idea that sex trafficking "only happens in other countries" is not accurate. Consider this photograph: What approach is being used to dramatize to the public the evil of human trafficking? What makes this photograph arresting? Do you find this approach effective? Why or why not? If you were asked to create an ad to dramatize human trafficking, how would you go about it? This photograph of young girls lined up and dressed in the same outfits tells the story of human trafficking in a different way. From what perspective is this photograph taken? What makes this perspective especially compelling? In what ways, and in what contexts, can visual images tell stories from the perspective of someone other than the photographer? What story does this photograph tell you? How does this image compare with the image on the previous page? Does the combined message and effect of these two images influence your thinking about human trafficking? In what way?

appropriate "long-term" goals

Identifying appropriate "long-term" goals is a much more complex and challenging process: career aims, plans for marriage, paying for children's college, goals for personal development. Think, for example, about the people you know who have full-time jobs. How many of these people get up in the morning excited and looking forward to going to work that day? Probably not many. Unfortunately, many people have not been successful in identifying the most appropriate career goals for themselves—goals that reflect their true interests and talents.

Becoming More Creative

Select an area of your life in which you would like to be more creative. It can be in school, on your job, in an activity you enjoy, or in your relationship with someone. Make a special effort to inject a fresh perspective and new ideas into this area, and keep a journal recording your efforts and their results. Be sure to allow yourself sufficient time to break out of your ruts and establish new patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Focus on your creative antennae as you "expect the unexpected," and pounce on new ideas when they emerge from the depths of your creative resource.

From The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, with Alex Haley

Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I've said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies. It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him. But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn't contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese. When I just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said. So I had come to the Norfolk Prison Colony still going through only book-reading motions. Pretty soon, I would have quit even these motions, unless I had received the motivation that I did. I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn't even write in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school. I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's pages. I'd never realized so many words existed! I didn't know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying. In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I'd written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting. I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—immensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I'd written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the words whose meanings I didn't remember.... I was so fascinated that I went on—I copied the dictionary's next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history.... That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary.... Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words. I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying....

Create positive voices and visualizations

The best way to destroy the VOC for good is to replace it with positive encouragements. As soon as you have stomped on the judgment "I'm a jerk," you should replace it with "I'm an intelligent, valuable person with many positive qualities and talents." Similarly, you should make extensive use of positive visualization, by "seeing" yourself performing well on your examinations, being entertaining and insightful with other people, and succeeding gloriously in the sport or dramatic production in which you are involved. If you make the effort to create these positive voices and images, they will eventually become a natural part of your thinking. And because positive thinking leads to positive results, your efforts will become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Step 5: Implement a Plan of Action and Then Monitor the Results, Making Necessary Adjustments

Once you have selected what you consider your best choice, you need to develop and implement a specific, concrete plan of action. As was noted in the section on short-term goals, the more specific and concrete your plan of action, the greater the likelihood of success. For example, if the student in the case we have been considering decides to pursue a career in graphic design and illustration, his plan should include reviewing the major that best meets his needs, discussing his situation with students and faculty in that department, planning the courses he will be taking, and perhaps speaking to people in the field. Of course, your plan is merely a starting point for implementing your decision. As you actually begin taking the steps in your plan, you will likely discover that changes and adjustments need to be made. In some cases, you may find that, based on new information, the choice you selected seems to be the wrong one. For example, as the student we have been discussing takes courses in graphic design and illustration, he may find that his interest in the field is not as serious as he thought and that, although he likes this area as a hobby, he does not want it to be his life work. In this case, he should return to considering his other choices and perhaps add additional choices that he did not consider before.

Thinking Critically About Visuals "Express Yourself!"

Our creative talents can be expressed in almost every area of our lives. How is the woman in the photo expressing herself creatively? What are some of your favorite activities in which you are able to express your unique personality in innovative ways? One of these myths is, in Perkins's words, that creativity is "a kind of 'stuff' that the creative person has and uses to do creative things, never mind other factors." This bit of folk wisdom, that creativity is a sort of intangible psychic organ—happily present in some and absent in others—so annoys Perkins that he would like to abolish the word itself. Another prevalent myth about creativity is that it is restricted to those who are "geniuses"—that is, people with inordinately high IQs. Ironically, this has been discredited by a study begun by Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman, the man who adapted the original French IQ test for America. In the early 1920s, Terman had California schoolteachers choose 1,528 "genius" schoolchildren (those with an IQ above 135), whose lives were then tracked year after year. After six decades, researchers found that the putative geniuses, by and large, did well in life. They entered the professions in large numbers and led stable, prosperous lives. But very few made notable creative contributions to society, and none did extraordinarily creative work. According to Dean Simonton, professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis and the author of Genius, Creativity and Leadership and Scientific Genius, "There just isn't any correlation between creativity and IQ. The average college graduate has an IQ of about 120, and this is high enough to write novels, do scientific research, or any other kind of creative work." A third myth, voiced eons ago by Socrates, lifts creativity out of our own lives altogether into a mystical realm that makes it all but unapproachable. In this view, the creative individual is a kind of oracle, the passive conduit or channel chosen by God, or the tribal ancestors, or the muse, to communicate sacred knowledge. Although there are extraordinary examples of creativity, for which the only explanation seems to be supernatural intervention (Mozart, the story goes, wrote the overture to Don Giovanni in only a few hours, after a virtually sleepless night and without revision), by and large, creativity begins with a long and intensive apprenticeship. Psychologist Howard Gruber believes that it takes at least 10 years of immersion in a given domain before an eminent creator is likely to be able to make a distinctive mark. Einstein, for example, who is popularly thought to have doodled out the theory of relativity at age 26 in his spare time, was in fact compulsively engaged in thinking about the problem at least from the age of 16. Finally, many who despair of ever being creative do so because they tried once and failed, as though the truly creative always succeed. In fact, just the opposite is true, says Dean Simonton. He sees genius, in a sense, as inseparable from failure. "Great geniuses make tons of mistakes," he says. "They generate lots of ideas and they accept being wrong. They have a kind of internal fortress that allows them to fail and just keep going. Look at Edison. He held over 1,000 patents, but most of them are not only forgotten, they weren't worth much to begin with."

Defining Yourself as a Creative Person

People often hesitate to recognize the breakthroughs in their own lives as creative. But who has not felt the elation and surprise that come with the sudden, seemingly inexplicable discovery of a solution to a stubborn problem? In that instant, in "going beyond the information given," as psychologist Jerome Bruner has said, to a solution that was the product of your own mind, you were expressing your creativity. This impulse to "go beyond" to a new idea is not the preserve of genius, stresses David Henry Feldman, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Nature's Gambit, a study of child prodigies. "Not everybody can be Beethoven," he says, "but it is true that all humans, by virtue of being dreamers and fantasizers, have a tendency to take liberties with the world as it exists. Humans are always transforming their inner and outer worlds. It's what I call the 'transformational imperative.'" The desire to play with reality, however, is highly responsive to social control, and many of us are taught early on to repress the impulse. As Mark Runco, associate professor of psychology at California State University at Fullerton and the founder of the new Creativity Research Journal, says, "We put children in groups and make them sit in desks and raise their hands before they talk. We put all the emphasis on conformity and order, then we wonder why they aren't being spontaneous and creative." Adults too are expected to conform in any number of ways and in a variety of settings. Conformity, after all, creates a sense of order and offers the reassurance of the familiar. But to free one's natural creative impulses, it is necessary, to some extent, to resist the pressure to march in step with the world. Begin small, suggests Richards. "Virtually nothing you do can't be done in a slightly different, slightly better way. This has nothing to do with so-called creative pursuits but simply with breaking with your own mindsets and trying an original way of doing some habitual task. Simply defer judgment on yourself for a little while and try something new. Remember, the essence of life is not getting things right, but taking risks, making mistakes, getting things wrong."

Restate the judgment in a more accurate or constructive way.

Sometimes there is an element of truth in our self-judgments, but we have blown the reality out of proportion. For example, if you fail a test, your VOC may translate this as "I'm unintelligent and a failure." In these instances, you need to translate the reality accurately: "I failed this test—I wonder what went wrong and how I can improve my performance in the future."

Method for Achieving Short-Term Goals

Step 1 - Identify the short-term goals. - Rank the goals in order of importance. - Select the most important goal(s) to focus on. Step 2 - List all of the steps in the order in which they should be taken. - Estimate how much time each step will take. - Plan the steps in your daily/weekly schedule.

Step 2: Consider All the Possible Choices

Successful decision makers explore all of the possible choices in their situation, not simply the obvious ones. In fact, the less obvious choices often turn out to be the most effective ones. For example, a student in a recent class of mine couldn't decide whether he should major in accounting or business management. In discussing his situation with other members of the class, he revealed that his real interest was in the area of graphic design and illustration. Although he was very talented, he considered this to be only a hobby, not a possible career choice. Class members pointed out to him that this might turn out to be his best career choice, but he first needed to see it as a possibility.

The Payoff

The Payoff In The Courage to Create, Rollo May wrote that for much of [the twentieth] century, researchers had avoided the subject of creativity because they perceived it as "unscientific, mysterious, disturbing and too corruptive of the scientific training of graduate students." But today researchers are coming to see that creativity, at once fugitive and ubiquitous, is the mark of human nature itself. Whether in business or the arts, politics, or personal relationships, creativity involves "going beyond the information given" to create or reveal something new in the world. And almost invariably, when the mind exercises its creative muscle, it also generates a sense of pleasure. The feeling may be powerfully mystical, as it is for New York artist Rhonda Zwillinger, whose embellished artwork appeared in the film Slaves of New York. Zwillinger reports, "There are times when I'm working and it is almost as though I'm a vessel and there is a force operating through me. It is the closest I come to having a religious experience." The creative experience may also be quiet and full of wonder, as it was for Isaac Newton, who compared his lifetime of creative effort to "a boy playing on the seashore and diverting himself and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the greater ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." But whatever the specific sensation, creativity always carries with it a powerful sense of the mind working at the peak of its ability. Creativity truly is, as David Perkins calls it, the mind's best work, its finest effort. We may never know exactly how the brain does it, but we can feel that it is exactly what the brain was meant to do. Aha!

Today's world is a complex and challenging place in which to live.

The accelerated pace at which many people live often makes them feel as though they are rushing from deadline to deadline, skating on the surface of life instead of exploring its deeper meanings. What is the purpose of your life? Who are you, and who do you want to become? These are essential questions that form the core of life, and yet the velocity of our lives discourages us from even posing these questions, much less trying to answer them. Your efforts to become thoughtful and reflective, to explore the nature of yourself and the meaning of your life, are made even more difficult by the unthinking world in which we live. Consider all of the foolish opinions, thoughtless decisions, confused communication, destructive behavior, and self-absorbed, thoughtless people whom you have to deal with each day. Reflect on the number of times you have scratched your head and wondered, "What was that person thinking?" And how many times have you asked yourself, "What was I thinking?" The disturbing truth is that many people don't think very well; they are not making use of their potential to think clearly and effectively. Every day you encounter a series of choices, forks in your life path that have the cumulative effect of defining you as a person. In thinking about these choices, you may discover that habitual patterns occur in your life and rarely change. If you find that your life comprises a collection of similar activities and routines, don't despair; this is typical, not unusual. However, it may be an indication that you are not living your life in the most thoughtful fashion possible, that your choices have become automatic, and that your experiences are fixed in certain "ruts." If this is the case, it may be time to reflect on your life, reevaluate the choices you are making, and consider living in a more reflective and creative fashion. You are an artist, creating your life portrait, and your paints and brush strokes are the choices you make each day. This metaphor provides you with a way to think about your personal development and underscores your responsibility for making the most intelligent decisions possible. You have the capacity to create a richly fulfilling life, but you must develop and make full use of your thinking potential to do so. By becoming a true educated thinker, you will have the tools to unlock the mysteries of yourself and meet the challenges of the world.

Eliminate the "Voice of Criticism"

The biggest threat to our creativity lies within ourselves, the negative "voice of criticism" (VOC). This VOC can undermine your confidence in every area of your life, including your creative activities, with statements like: This is a stupid idea and no one will like it. Even if I could pull this idea off, it probably won't amount to much. Although I was successful the last time I tried something like this, I was lucky and I won't be able to do it again. These statements, and countless others like them, have the ongoing effect of making us doubt ourselves and the quality of our creative thinking. As we lose confidence, we become more timid, more reluctant to follow through on ideas and present them to others. After a while, our cumulative insecurity discourages us from even generating ideas in the first place, and we end up simply conforming to established ways of thinking and the expectations of others. In doing so we surrender an important part of ourselves, the vital and dynamic creative core of our personality that defines our unique perspective on the world. Where do these negative voices come from? Often they originate in the negative judgments we experienced while growing up or as adults when we encountered "trolls" on social media. These destructive criticisms become internalized as a part of ourselves. In the same way that praising children helps make them feel confident and secure, consistently criticizing them does the opposite. Although parents, teachers, and acquaintances often don't intend these negative consequences with their critical judgments and lack of positive praise, and even though our reason reminds us that social media "trolls" are unjustified in their attacks, the unfortunate result is still the same: a "voice of criticism" that keeps hammering away at the value of ourselves, our ideas, and our creations. As a teacher, I see this VOC evident when students present their creative projects to the class with apologies like, "This isn't very good, and it probably doesn't make sense." How do we eliminate this unwelcome and destructive voice within ourselves? You can use a number of effective strategies, although you should be aware that the fight, while worth the effort, will not be easy.

thinking critically

The cognitive process used to carefully explore one's thinking (and the thinking of others) to clarify and improve one's understanding and to make more intelligent decisions.

1.7 Thinking Ahead

The first line of this chapter stated, "Thinking is the extraordinary process we use every waking moment to make sense of our world and our lives." Throughout this chapter, we have explored the different ways our thinking enables us to make sense of the world by working toward goals, making decisions, and living creatively. Of course, our thinking helps us make sense of the world in other ways as well. When we attend a concert, listen to a lecture, or try to understand someone's behavior, it is our thinking that enables us to figure out what is happening. In fact, these attempts to make sense of what is happening are going on all the time in our lives, and they represent the heart of the thinking process. If we review the different ways of thinking we have explored in this chapter, we can reach several conclusions about thinking: - Thinking is directed toward a purpose. When we think, it is usually for a purpose—to reach a goal, make a decision, or analyze an issue. - Thinking is an organized process. When we think effectively, there is usually an order or organization to our thinking. For each of the thinking activities we explored, we saw that certain steps or approaches help us reach goals, make decisions, and live creatively. We can put together these conclusions about thinking to form a working definition of the term.

Step 4: Select the Choice That Seems to Best Meet the Needs of the Situation

The first three steps of this approach are designed to help you analyze your decision situation: to clearly define the decision, generate possible choices, gather relevant information, and evaluate the pros and cons of the choices you identified. In this fourth step, you must attempt to synthesize all that you have learned, weaving together all of the various threads into a conclusion that you believe to be your "best" choice. How do you do this? There is no one simple way to identify your "best" choice, but some useful strategies are available for guiding your deliberations. Once identified, the goals can be ranked in order of their priority, which will then suggest what the "best" choice will be. For example, if the student ranks goals (a) and (d) at the top of the list, then a choice of accounting or business administration might make sense. On the other hand, if the student ranks goals (b) and (c) at the top, then pursuing a career in graphic design and illustration might be the best selection.

Use other people for independent confirmation.

The negative judgments coming from the VOC are usually irrational, but until they are dragged out into the light of day for examination, they can be very powerful. Sharing our VOC with others we trust is an effective strategy because they can provide an objective perspective that reveals to us the irrationality and destructiveness of these negative judgments. This sort of "reality testing" strips the judgments of their power, a process that is enhanced by the positive support of concerned friends with whom we have developed relationships over a period of time.

1.6c Thinking Passages: Nurturing Creativity

The process of creating yourself through your choices is a lifelong one that involves all the creative and critical thinking abilities that we will be exploring in this book. The processes of creative thinking and critical thinking are related to one another in complex, interactive ways. We use the creative thinking process to develop ideas that are unique, useful, and worthy of further elaboration, and we use the critical thinking process to analyze, evaluate, and refine these ideas. Creative thinking and critical thinking work as partners, enabling us to lead fulfilling lives. The following article, "Original Spin," by Lesley Dormen and Peter Edidin, provides a useful introduction to creative thinking and suggests strategies for increasing your creative abilities. After reading the article and reflecting on their ideas, answer the questions that follow.

The Mystery of the Mind and Scientific Developments

These images depict different understandings of the human mind. The first image represents phrenology, a science popular in the 1800s but now debunked, that claimed personality traits and dispositions could be determined by the size and shape of various parts of the skull. The second is a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), a modern neuroscientific technology used to measure blood flow in the brain in order to determine changes in activity that are used to infer what an individual is thinking about. Compare the two images to identify what visual qualities suggest trustworthiness. Does the phrenology diagram or the fMRI seem more accurate? Why? How might a critical thinking student from the 1800s have viewed these images? What about a student in 2100? Do scientific facts ever change?

Thinking

Thinking is a purposeful, organized cognitive process that we use to understand the world and make informed decisions. It develops with use over a lifetime, and we can improve our thinking in an organized and systematic way by following these steps: - Carefully examine our thinking process and the thinking process of others. In this chapter, we have explored various ways in which our thinking works. By focusing our attention on these (and other) thinking approaches and strategies, we can learn to think more effectively. - Practice our thinking abilities. To improve our thinking, we actually have to think for ourselves, to explore and make sense of situations by using our thinking abilities. Although it is important to read about thinking and learn how other people think, there is no substitute for actually doing it ourselves.

Step 1: Define the Decision Clearly

This seems like an obvious step, but a lot of decision making goes wrong at the starting point. For example, imagine that you decide that you want to have a "more active social life." The problem with this characterization of your decision is it defines the situation too generally and therefore doesn't give any clear direction for your analysis. Do you want to develop an intimate, romantic relationship? Do you want to cultivate more close friendships? Do you want to engage in more social activities? Do you want to meet new people? In short, the decision to have a "more active social life" can be defined more clearly in many ways. The more specific your definition of the decision to be made, the clearer your analysis will be and the greater the likelihood of success.

Creating the Right Atmosphere

Understanding the genesis of creativity, going beyond the myths to understand your creative potential, and recognizing your ability to break free of old ways of thinking are the three initial steps to a more creative life. The fourth is finding ways to work that encourage personal commitment and expressiveness. Letting employees learn what they want to do has never been a very high priority in the workplace. There, the dominant regulation has always been, "Do what you are told." Today, however, economic realities are providing a new impetus for change. The pressure on American businesses to become more productive and innovative has made creative thinking a hot commodity in the business community. But innovation, business is now learning, is likely to be found wherever bright and eager people think they can find it. And some people are looking in curious places. Financier Wayne Silby, for example, founded the Calvert Group of Funds, which today manages billions of dollars in assets. Silby, whose business card at one point read Chief Daydreamer, occasionally retreats for inspiration to a sensory deprivation tank, where he floats in warm water sealed off from light and sound. "I went into the tank during a time when the government was changing money-market deposit regulations, and I needed to think how to compete with banks. Floating in the tank I got the idea of joining them instead. We wound up creating an $800-million program. Often we already have answers to our problems, but we don't quiet ourselves enough to see the solutions bubbling just below the surface." Those solutions will stay submerged, he says, "unless you create a culture that encourages creative approaches, where it's OK to have bad ideas."

thinking creatively

Using the thinking process to develop ideas that are unique, useful, and worthy of elaboration.

Creative Applications

Virtually every aspect of our lives has been affected by the development and use of new media technologies, including the way we think and write, communicate with one another, research and gather information, develop and sustain relationships, and create our identities. Accompanying this new universe of possibilities are many risks and challenges that increase the need to develop and apply our critical thinking abilities. It's essential that we have the strategies and insight to make sure that these powerful new vehicles of communication are used to enhance our lives, not complicate and damage them. One of the themes of this chapter has been creative thinking, and new media offer an unprecedented opportunity to search for information that will enrich our creative endeavors. New media also afford us the chance to gather many different perspectives on our projects, with others' ideas serving as catalysts to our creative imaginations. For example, ZTE is a Chinese company that used crowdsourcing to determine their next big product launch. Customers submitted proposals for virtual reality headsets, gloves you can control with your smartphone, and intelligent covers for phones. As reported by NPR, nearly 100,000 people from over 150 countries engaged in this unique crowdsourcing event. The winning idea was a phone that you could stick to a wall and control with your eyes while you brush your teeth in the morning, for example. ZTE is now developing such a device that they're calling the Hawkeye (a name that was also crowdsourced).

Images and Evaluation

When you have gathered images that relate to your topic, you can use questions of fact, interpretation, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application (Carefully Exploring Situations with Questions) to help you sort through the visuals and select those that best support your purpose in writing. For example, a witty or satirical editorial cartoon about the federal response to Hurricane Sandy might be appropriate for an argument essay in which you analyze the political impact of that disaster, but for a paper about the storm's long-term environmental effects, you would be better served by a map showing the loss of land or a satellite photograph showing the extent of flood damage. The Thinking Critically About Visuals activity contains two photographs of a very different kind of human disaster—the tragedy of human trafficking. Both types of disasters have devastating consequences for innocent people caught up in these events.

Goals have extremely important functions, organizing your thinking and giving your life order and direction

Whether you are preparing food, preparing for an exam, or preparing for a career, goals suggest courses of action and influence your decisions. By performing these functions, goals contribute meaning to your life. They give you something to aim for and lead to a sense of accomplishment when you reach them, like the satisfaction you may have felt when you graduated from high school or entered college. Your thinking abilities enable you first to identify what your goals are, and then to plan how to reach these goals. Most of your behavior has a purpose or purposes, a goal or goals, that you are trying to reach. You can begin to discover the goals of your actions by asking the question "Why?" about what you are doing or thinking. For example, answer the following question as specifically as you can: Why did you enroll in college?

Get tough with the VOC

You can't be a coward if you hope to overcome the VOC. Instead, you have to be strong and determined, telling yourself as soon as the VOC appears, "I'm throwing you out and not letting you back in!" This attack might feel peculiar at first, but it will soon become an automatic response when those negative judgments appear. Don't give in to the judgments, even a little bit, by saying, "Well, maybe I'm just somewhat of a failure." Get rid of the VOC entirely, and good riddance to it!

Become aware of the VOC

You have probably been listening to the negative messages of the VOC for so long that you may not even be consciously aware of them. To conquer the VOC, you need to first recognize when it speaks. In addition, it is helpful to analyze the negative messages, try to figure out how and why they developed, and then create strategies to overcome them. A good strategy is to keep a VOC journal, described in Thinking Activity 1.8.

Step 3: Gather All Relevant Information and Evaluate

the Pros and Cons of Each Possible Choice In many cases, you may lack sufficient information to make an informed choice regarding a challenging, complex decision. Unfortunately, this doesn't prevent people from plunging ahead anyway, making a decision that is often more a gamble than an informed choice. Instead of this questionable approach, it makes much more sense to seek out the information you need in order to determine which of the choices you identified has the best chance for success. For example, in the case of the student mentioned in Step 2, he would need to have important information before determining whether he should consider a career in graphic design and illustration, including asking, What are the specific careers within this general field? What sort of academic preparation and experience are required for the various careers? What are the prospects for employment in these areas, and how well do they pay? In addition to locating all relevant information, each of the possible choices you identified has certain advantages and disadvantages, and it is essential that you analyze these pros and cons in an organized fashion. For example, in the case of the student described earlier, the choice of pursuing a career in accounting may have advantages such as ready employment opportunities, the flexibility of working in many different situations and geographical locations, moderate to high income expectations, and job security. On the other hand, disadvantages might include the fact that accounting may not reflect a deep and abiding interest for the student, he might lose interest over time, or the career might not result in the personal challenge and fulfillment that he seeks.