It seems whether we have a tendency towards being flexible or structured affects how we create, how we parent, how we work.

The extreme of flexibility is chaos and the extreme of being structured is rigid and staying sane, or indeed using your creativity, is about being aware of these extremes and steering yourself to areas where you work best which usually tend to be more in the middle than at either extreme edge.

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills.

Plasticity is an intrinsic property of the human brain and represents evolution's invention to enable the nervous system to escape the restrictions of its own genome and thus adapt to environmental pressures, physiologic changes, and experiences.

I am talking about being optimistic enough to sow some seeds in the hope that some of them will germinate and grow into flowers.

If we keep practicing mental skills it is likely we can strengthen neural connections and make new connections.

People tend to slip up and go along the old road before they realise what they've done and climb out of it again.