Nature and Process of Creative Thinking

Someone, at some point, was the very first person to think of planting a seed, devising a wheel, or decorating cave walls with drawings — dissatisfied with existing ways of doing things, such people thought of something original, and countless such moments of originality underlie much of today's scientific and technological progress, as well as art forms such as music, painting and poetry. Two Indian examples are given: botanist A.D. Karve, who won a UK energy award for converting dry, otherwise useless sugarcane leaves into a smokeless cooking-stove fuel (the 'Chullah'), and Class XI student Ashish Panwar, who won a bronze medal for assembling a five-foot-tall robot at the First International Robotics Olympiad held in Glasgow.

Creative thinking is not confined to extraordinary achievements of this kind, or to scientists and artists alone — everyone has the potential to be creative, and it can show up in ordinary activities such as writing, teaching, cooking, story-telling, conversation, playing games, or helping resolve conflicts between friends. This idea, called 'Everyday Creativity,' is different from the 'special talent creativity' seen in outstanding, widely recognised achievements. …