The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might not be why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle that anybody created anything.
Interpretation
The quote questions why creativity is not universal and urges us to rethink our perceptions about it.
Abraham Maslow's quote challenges the common notion that creativity is rare or miraculous. Instead, he suggests that we should investigate the reasons behind the lack of creativity in many people, questioning societal and psychological factors that inhibit human potential. By reframing our understanding of creativity, we can encourage more individuals to express their creative abilities and innovate.
In practice
In a workshop about encouraging creative thinking in teams.
It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.
The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy
Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.
It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually.
I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.
Whatever happens around you, don't take it personally... Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.
Why worry? If you've done the very best you can, worrying won't make it any better
If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don't tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don't understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions.
The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.
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