Accidents...and letting them happen

"In order to be habitually creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative, but good planning along won't make your efforts successful; its only after you let go of your plans that you can breathe life into your efforts."

After reading this quote toward the beginning of Tharp's seventh chapter, I knew she was going to teach me a thing or two about myself. I tend to be a planner...I like to make plans, whether its for a birthday, an event or just an excuse to get together I am the planner. When ever my friends want to organize a get together, I am usually the one left to plan it. And while planning and organizing is all fine and dandy, reading Tharp's opinion on planning and over planning really left me thinking about whether or not I am an "over planner" or am I willing to see the chances for creativity as they come my way?

I like her idea that "creative endeavors can never be thoroughly mapped out ahead of time"...you have to allow for the "accidental spark." It was this phrase that I was really interested in. The thought of letting things at work be more losely planned to allow for easier transitions and changes was an eye opener. It seems so cut and dry....if you just prepare yourself for creativity, for observations and spur of the moment changes things that I would have never imagined could be incorporated to my daily tasks and projects at work. I love the thought that, "You don't get lucky without preparation, and there's no sense in being prepared if you're not open to the possibility of a glorious accident."

Well if thats the case, I am going to plan on being prepared.

Judging....

My blogging has been subpar up to this point to say the least. It has not been my intention, but it has happened. Judge me as you may, but I am taking a stand right now...redeeming myself in all that is blog.

I am tuckered out after returning from a 5 day business trip to Phoenix, AZ. But thanks to delays and plenty of terminal taxi-ing, I had more than enough time to catch up on my necessary readings.

I know it may be hard to believe judging from my consistency in blogging, but the chapter, Curiosita was really speaking my language...I have this urge to continue learning, and continuing to grow, and ask constant questions. I remember when I was in grade school and my parents would come home from conferences and my teachers would always say something along lines of how willing I was to ask the, "whys? and the how comes" always looking for more than the answer that I was given.

I started keeping a journal the moment I could put sentences together on a page; I received my first journal on my 6th birthday, I was in first grade- It had a bubblegum dispenser on the cover- I had that journal filled cover to cover in no time flat. Full of sketches and random thoughts...which at 6 and 7 were incredibly random. I continued to keep diaries and journals, constantly asking myself questions about where I wanted to go to high school, then college, then my degree, studying abroad? graduate school? My journals were filled with more questions and poem like scribblings than anything else.

In relation to "How to Think like Da Vinci" I feel that my writings, scribblings and journals over time did bring more understanding to whatever question or issue was at hand. I have a fascination with human relationships/interactions, so many of my writings are observational situations that have happened during my day at work, or at a coffee shop while attempting to focus on my work. I am working on my top ten questions...