I Love FAST COMPANY

I subscribe to FAST COMPANY magazine.  I love it.  Talk about cutting edge and fast forward thinking- I always walk away from reading it with a head full of ideas and leads on new resources.

The current issue landed while I was away last month and I just got around to reading it today.

This is an outstanding issue as it talks about CREATIVE CAPITAL and it's their annual Master of Design issue where they focus on outstanding designers.  You gotta read this issue.

The article that rang my bell today was NEUROSCIENCE SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON CREATIVITY

Creativity and imagination begin with perception. Neuroscientists have come to realize that how you perceive something isn't simply a product of what your eyes and ears transmit to your brain. It's a product of your brain itself. And iconoclasts, a class of people I define as those who do something that others say can't be done -- think Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or Florence Nightingale -- see things differently. Literally. Some iconoclasts are born that way, but we all can learn how to see things not for what they are, but for what they might be.

Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Imagination is like running perception in reverse. The reason it's so difficult to imagine truly novel ideas has to do with how the brain interprets signals from your eyes. The images that strike your retina do not, by themselves, tell you with certainty what you are seeing. Visual perception is largely a result of statistical expectations, the brain's way of explaining ambiguous visual signals in the most likely way. And the likelihood of these explanations is a direct result of past experience.

It was great to read this statement about perception and creativity. As I grow older I learn to trust my perception of situations and experiences and maybe it's because my creativity is trying to make new connections and understanding of the scene.

It's something to think about.

What do you think? Are these connected? How are they real in your life?

HT:  Fast Company