A few years ago a friend of mine looked at my calculator (a high school grade one) and commented:

“You know, Albert, that calculator in your hand is more powerful than the computer that put the first man on the moon.”

I was close to flabbergasted. I had barely pushed my grades higher than my nose with him, while “less fortunate” classmates were seeing new horizons!

So you could tell he had my attention. And now I hope to have yours as well. But there is much more to this story.

You may have noticed that the comfort of having all this help can work against your ability (and willingness) to engage critically with ideas, puzzles, and other thinking tasks. Why would you when you could just google it?

Here, however, is the problem.

As with the illustration my friend did, what he explained to me was that while I viewed my calculator as an aid, he showed me that I should specifically view myself as a tool. This tool couldn’t do more than what I set out to do. I had set limits on it and it would serve me only to the extent that I was willing to accept those limits.

So very recently I applied that approach to my writing. After spending the better part of 2 hours staring at my computer screen doing mindless searches, I decided to take a 30 minute pen and paper break to generate a content outline.

In about 10 minutes, I had sketched out the general structure of this very article, and so many other interesting nuggets came up that I’ll have to cover those elements in a later post. What a return on time invested: 10 minutes in silence for what I had stopped doing in 2 hours! I wonder how many others out there have had a similar bite.

The outstanding creative process.

I found that these are key characteristics of the flow that occurs when you disengage from the tools and unleash your creative human element. These don’t necessarily happen chronologically and sometimes it feels like a chaos of thoughts. Don’t let that hinder you. You can always connect the dots later, but don’t block them from landing on the page in the first place.

• ideas and knowledge
• implement
• review
• deliver

IDEAS AND PERSPECTIVES

Begin by writing random words on a blank piece of paper. It may seem silly at first, but soon you’ll start to see connections and patterns in what you’re writing. At this point, your INSIGHT is developed. This is where the statements start to mean something to you, even though they may seem unrelated at first. The words “Milk” and “Sand” you wrote might make you think of a place you’ve visited or be inspired by a recipe of some kind. This will vary with all of your various interests, but once the creation process begins, things unknown start to become a reality.

IMPLEMENT

This is where you follow that strange train of thought. Say our sample word “MILK + SAND” reminded you of a leisurely visit to her grandmother’s ranch? Write what you felt or the perception that brought you. Did it bring a tune that you ever bled with it? hum it.

At this stage, just follow what is coming your way. By doing this, you are exercising your creative freedom and getting out of the conformist “I won’t turn the tide” mode.

And if all this comes to nothing?

Some of these processes will seem very fruitless, I must say. But notice that you have these channels open again, now you can recognize when you are being creative and stop being afraid of it. It will feel more natural and you will get better too.

REVIEW

This is where you bring out your more conservative side to assess how good (and queer) you’ve been doing. Hopefully this is where you say:

“Wait, I’m not actually going to make a sand and milk smoothie, am I?”

Here I would agree with you. The outside compost heap might like it, but it might not do you much good.

The review stage is where you filter out the weird, the obviously right, and also those great moments.

DELIVER

This is where you take action with your idea, now concept. Write about it, do it, design it. This is where your cell-sized creativity has grown into a grown-up person and is ready to take a walk, run, or fly to the moon.

So you can too!

It will feel strange, but it could also take you from looking at the moon to standing on it. If your classmates think you’re crazy, yes you are! So finish what you started so they can really appreciate how crazy your idea was.