Recovering our desire for creativity
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
Have you ever felt you’re dull, uninspired and need to change this? If so, find a museum or exhibit that lauds a person who possesses a great mind at work.
If these don’t exist, purchase the biography of a person who has inspired the world with ideas, inventions and creativity and enjoy its energizing effect on you.
Recently, my desire for creativity and innovation was re-energized during a visit to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where there is a new exhibit on Benjamin Franklin.
As I walked from one showcase to the next, I came across a glass harmonica that Franklin – a noted author, printer, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman and diplomat – invented. It contained a row of glasses ranging from small to large.
As the glasses revolved, a person could play beautiful soothing music on them by wetting his or her finger and gently rubbing it on the rims of the various size glasses. I viewed it and wondered what it must have been like when Franklin entertained his dinner guests with its exotic sounds.
An adjoining exhibit displayed maps showing the mail routes Franklin created, which became the basis of our mail system today.
No matter what exhibit I viewed, one message rang out above all others: to experience an innovative, creative mind at work is to experience the essence of human beauty at its best.
I don’t know how the exhibit is affecting others, but for me it kindled a desire to delve deeper into the lives of creative persons, to energize my mind and put it to work better.
Franklin was not only an inventor, but also a wise politician and an imaginative writer whose short quotes contain down-to-earth wisdom.
Note how timeless they are:
“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.”
“A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”
“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
“All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.”
“All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.”
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do.”
“At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30, the wit, and at 40, the judgment.”
A person in the museum reviewing Franklin’s outstanding achievements whispered to me, “Do I feel like a piker. Compared to him, I have accomplished nothing.”
Yes, this is one of the effects in studying great minds at work. It is also a wonderful way of putting our minds to work more fully.
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Have you ever felt you’re dull, uninspired and need to change this? If so, find a museum or exhibit that lauds a person who possesses a great mind at work.
If these don’t exist, purchase the biography of a person who has inspired the world with ideas, inventions and creativity and enjoy its energizing effect on you.
Recently, my desire for creativity and innovation was re-energized during a visit to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where there is a new exhibit on Benjamin Franklin.
As I walked from one showcase to the next, I came across a glass harmonica that Franklin – a noted author, printer, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman and diplomat – invented. It contained a row of glasses ranging from small to large.
As the glasses revolved, a person could play beautiful soothing music on them by wetting his or her finger and gently rubbing it on the rims of the various size glasses. I viewed it and wondered what it must have been like when Franklin entertained his dinner guests with its exotic sounds.
An adjoining exhibit displayed maps showing the mail routes Franklin created, which became the basis of our mail system today.
No matter what exhibit I viewed, one message rang out above all others: to experience an innovative, creative mind at work is to experience the essence of human beauty at its best.
I don’t know how the exhibit is affecting others, but for me it kindled a desire to delve deeper into the lives of creative persons, to energize my mind and put it to work better.
Franklin was not only an inventor, but also a wise politician and an imaginative writer whose short quotes contain down-to-earth wisdom.
Note how timeless they are:
“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.”
“A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.”
“A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”
“All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.”
“All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.”
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do.”
“At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30, the wit, and at 40, the judgment.”
A person in the museum reviewing Franklin’s outstanding achievements whispered to me, “Do I feel like a piker. Compared to him, I have accomplished nothing.”
Yes, this is one of the effects in studying great minds at work. It is also a wonderful way of putting our minds to work more fully.
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