David Byrne’s TED Talk – Creation in Reverse
David Byrne has transcribed his recent TED talk on creativity (I’m sure the video will be posted at TED soon).
His thesis is pretty interesting:
That doesn’t sound like such a big insight, but it’s actually backwards from what I perceive to be conventional wisdom — which is that creation emerges out of some interior emotion or from an upwelling of passion that inevitably and must find an outlet. This is the romantic notion of how creative work comes to be. Here are the lyrics to a new song by the group One Republic: “I need another story/Something to get off my chest…When a situation rises/Just write it into an album.”
It doesn’t even rhyme, but more than that I think it’s based on a mistaken assumption.
He’s very convincing. While it’s a long read, I highly recommend it (I know that carries a TON of weight).
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