Trying to Think Someone Else’s Thoughts
View CommentsYou can’t be me.
I can’t be you.
The best that we will achieve will be a bad facsimile.
Yet that’s what we do when we work for someone’s approval.
Roger von Oech’s post, Discover Your Own Creative Style, brilliantly explains how we get there.
Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of “guess what the teacher is thinking,” and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone else’s head rather than our own.
And he follows that up with great advice on creativity and thinking. Go on to read it. I’ll wait here until you’re finished.
The point is that thinking another’s thoughts is impossible. We’re really thinking what we’d be thinking, if we were that person — We’re just being ourselves in another version, one that isn’t quite true to them or us.
We might as well do our own thinking. It’s a lot less complicated, a lot more efficient, and a lot more likely to bring forth a new and valuable thought.
Liz Strauss
