My Creativity System

I believe I have unconsciously come up with a complete creativity system. It works on the idea of nature's evolution. There are three phases to this system: the germinal stage, the developmental stage, and the implementation stage. All three of these stages can occur non-linearly. The germinal stage consists of the extraction of ideas from the collective human imagination and recording those memes indiscriminately and constantly in what I call an "idea journal." The germinal stage involves finding and establishing a relationship to a muse--which can be any sort of state of mind or a thing or a place--it doesn't really matter outside of the distinction of whether or not it offers you greater clarity and openness to the greater human imagination.

The developmental stage consists of deep cognitive processing of the memes that one has "dragged from the shore," so to say, letting one's mind linger and mull over the concepts, and also recording those elaborations along with the original, seed idea; and storing it in an easily searchable and browsable format. The final stage, implementation, involves assimilating these developed ideas into a polished production of some sort that is meant to be sold or given to the world at large.

One could also model this progression as a graduation of intoxication. The germinal stage is all about the inspiration, about having an intimate and cultivated relationship with one's muse. This relationship can be lubricated and furnished by episodes of mild-to-intense intoxication, which in my particular case is green tea. The developmental stage consequently involves still having a relationship with the muse about a particular idea, but it involves more logical development and focus, both qualities the muse cannot supply. Follow the idea to its fullest development here, and in my experience the best way to lubricate this process while still maintaining some degree of focus has been subtle-to-mild intoxication. The implementation stage demands the most focus and relatability of the three stages. All that is required is to follow the instructions that you developed in the previous two stages--there's no creativity involved, so therefore intoxication at this point is not recommended.

This process can be iterative as well, in that one can take finished pieces and use those as "cuttings" to build off of old writing to create new content.