Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. Thereโs an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the "Aha." Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that weโre in - the one that we think is reality.
Alan KayI think the trick with knowledge is to โacquire it, and forget all except the perfumeโ - because it is noisy and sometimes drowns out one's own โbrain voicesโ. The perfume part is important because it will help find the knowledge again to help get to the destinations the inner urges pick.
Alan KayIf you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Alan KayThere is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.
Alan Kay