Creativity is fun. It is ALWAYS fun. That has been my experience.

The process of being creative is fun. Take brain-storming, an exercise used in coming up with new concepts, new ideas, new processes, new products, new beginnings to replace old technologies -- they are always fun, particularly when the constraints of time are removed, and the mind allowed to wonder, to drift to new places, to a new world... I remember reading a poem many years ago by the 1913 Nobel prize winner in literature, Rabindranth Tagore that refers to the mind being free. I had thought about what he was saying and was impressed. So impressed was I, that as I started to write this response, it came flooding back... I had of course forgotten some words over these many years...

I have just searched the Internet and found these lines from

Where The Mind Is Without Fear, which I quote here:

" Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken into pieces

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out of from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arm towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

As someone who has been creative and had also taught a course in creativity at a British university ( as part of an MBA programme) , I think, and I am convinced that each of the above lines, (except perhaps the last line which implores of a higher being or God, if you will) encapsulates the notion of freedom of thought, and squarely applies to creative thinking.

In the brain-storming exercise in class, as well as in an exercise on brain-writing, I would tell students not to be afraid, to think and to let their fantasies fly and wander far from their present problems and issues, from their worries and their concerns; I insisted that no one should criticise anything anyone might suggest -- every idea was worth exploring further. Lo and behold, we got many interesting ideas that students, many of whom were already holding down jobs, to take back to their places of work. Creativity happens when the mind is allowed to freely think. Creative ideas may not come soon for some, but it will certainly come if all stumbling blocks, restraints, restrictions, constraints are removed. To close, please remove all constraints and pressures and allow time... creativity will then be truly fun.

PS: If there is anyone out there who needs creative ideas for technology or innovation, feel free to contact me. I might be able to help but I make no promises, as you can well imagine.