How To Be Creative: PBS’ Off Book Series Explores the Secret Sauce of Great Ideas

How to be cre­ative? There’s no sim­ple answer to that ques­tion, and no short­age of peo­ple offer­ing answers. Com­ic genius John Cleese will tell you it’s all about cre­at­ing “oases for child­like play.” Film­mak­er David Lynch finds a great source of cre­ativ­i­ty in med­i­ta­tion. Nov­el­ist Amy Tan sees cre­ativ­i­ty flow­ing from a kind of cos­mic empa­thy (got­ta watch the video to see what I mean). And Stan­ford edu­ca­tor Tina Seel­ig offers her own set of answers in a recent book, MOOC, and a TED Talk.

Now let us give you a lit­tle more food for thought. The lat­est episode of PBS’ Off Book video series fea­tures four fig­ures — an author, cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist, film­mak­er, and com­put­er sci­en­tist — all try­ing to put their fin­gers on the elu­sive things that make cre­ativ­i­ty hap­pen. Their thoughts and advice are var­ied. But if you put them all togeth­er, you may make strides in your own cre­ative life.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

John Cleese’s Phi­los­o­phy of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Cre­at­ing Oases for Child­like Play

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi Explains Why the Source of Hap­pi­ness Lies in Cre­ativ­i­ty and Flow, Not Mon­ey

Ansel Adams Reveals His Cre­ative Process in 1958 Doc­u­men­tary

The Com­plete His­to­ry of the World (and Human Cre­ativ­i­ty) in 100 Objects