The Creative Act of Pondering
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I ponder a great deal. When I croak, someone will wonder what I am pondering at that moment. My pondering is contagious. Even Jack and I will ponder together.
When pondering, I will ponder about everything from politics to when the Steelers will win the Super Bowl again. Nonetheless, the genesis of my pondering is based upon from whence does my pondering come. All the other pondering moments are tangents from the ultimate pondering issue. Why do some people possess the creative moments of pondering? A follow-up question is why are not all people ponderers? For those of you who do not see yourselves as ones who ponder, this essay is going down a trail that means little to you. However, read on; I hope that I can address your concerns. Whenever, I fear that I might lose a reader, I will bring into the essay notable people to present my case from their position of acceptability. Enter Steve Jobs. He too pondered my haunting question about the creativity and the pondering moment.
That moment of pondering became a moment of creativity. Jobs hit the pondering nail head-on. Those creative moments just happen. Trust me if you are a left-brained thinker. I, too, like Jobs, cannot explain what happens while deep in thought. It is strange; something just happens. I will read something about some topic, and, like magic, I will connect it to something seemingly unrelated. Look at all the Critical Issues on my Articles index page. There are seventeen critical issues and their index pages, which contain scores of articles. That is what is there now. I am going to tell you about the next critical issue that will appear in the next month or so: Love of Teaching. It is going to be a hyperlink to PowerPoints that I have created while teaching. The first one will be a PP for an art history class that I have taught. I will use the exact PP slides used in teaching college age students, but present a video lecture so that Jack who is five and Owen who is three can understand it. Ask how that idea hit me. I will tell you that I have no idea. However, it has, and I am driven. Now, while I work on that project, I want to divide my readers into two groups: those that are right or left-brained. For those of you that are right-brained, you and I are on the same page. You understand what Jobs said. Now, take what you already know and act. Make it work for you. The other half of my readers are left-brained, and we are on different pages...even in some cases in different books. Pondering and creativity are not your forté. Hey, math and science are not mine. Nonetheless, I ventured into the sciences. I want you to do the same. Venture into pondering and creativity. If I can wrestle with the sciences, you can wrestle with this area. Ponder for five minutes each day when it is quiet. Turn off the TV and computer. Just sit and think. Think about what concerns you. What have you not resolved? Think. Pain is the best enabler. No pain, no gain. The pain will produce beneficial results if you think and ponder. I have danced with death twice. I do not wish to replicate that dance again, but I would never delete either dance from my life.
Visit the Connecting the Dots page to read more about this topic.
Visit the The Last Lecture page to read more about this topic.
Visit the Dancing with Death page to read more about this topic.
Visit the Man in the Arena page to read more about this topic.
Visit the Best and Worst of Times page to read more about this topic. 08/24/15 Follow @mountain_and_me |
