Set Boundaries

John Cleese of Monty Python fame gave one of the best lectures I’ve ever heard about creativity. In it, he eloquently emphasizes the need to carve out a specific space, and a specific time, to enable — not guarantee — creativity to flow.

“There are certain conditions which do make it more likely that you’ll get into the open mode and that something creative will occur. More likely. You can’t guarantee anything will occur. You might sit around for hours as I did last Tuesday and nothing, zilch… Nevertheless, I can at least tell you how to get into the open mode.

You need one: space. Two: time. Three: time…”

The double-emphasis on time isn’t accidental. Citing Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s landmark 1938 study of play (Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture), he quotes:

“Play is distinct from ordinary life both as to locality and duration. This is its main characteristic: it’s secludedness, it’s limitedness. Play begins, and then, at a certain moment, it is over. Otherwise, it’s not play.”

The importance of this insight, and its implications on the pursuit of creativity, cannot be overstated. It is not possible to be creative (or “open,” as Cleese calls it) all the time.

But that’s not the point.

The point is, by deliberating carving out parameters in time and space — by setting boundaries to protect the pursuit and possibility of creativity — we dramatically increase the likelihood of our being creative at all.

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