Creative Chaos

I can solve a Rubik's Cube.  To some people that is impressive, and to others it leads to further questions.  Those who find it impressive are usually people who can't solve it themselves.  Those that ask further questions are people who can either solve it themselves or have some understanding of the mathematics behind the puzzle and the algorithms that exist to solve it.  The questions they ask are what approach you use to solve it and how quickly can you solve it.  For the sake of transparency I use a layered approach and I can solve it in less than a minute which if you know much about the puzzle and those who can solve it isn't that impressive as there are those who can solve it much quicker, for instance, Yusheng Du can solve it in 3.47 seconds which is incredible to me.  I love the puzzle and have looked at the approaches used to solve it much quicker but I don't have the determination to do so, my curiosity was satiated really when I learned how to solve it in the first place.

Learning to solve the Rubik's Cube was something that a University friend took an interest in before me.  I had never approached the puzzle with any methodology prior to that point simply playing with it mindlessly.  This was essentially something physical to distract myself which helped relieve anxiety - which in hindsight could be considered a coping mechanism which I largely abandoned and I am not sure why, that's something to explore in a future post.  For some people the analogue to this act would be the use of fidget spinners and stress balls among others.  Point was, it wasn't something I devoted much conscious effort to doing.  When my friend took an interest however he showed me the approach and I sat and listened and observed his actions.  With his guidance I learned how to solve the cube and in time built up the speed at which I could solve it until the act in itself became muscle memory.  Even now I can still solve the 2x2x2, and 3x3x3 cubes without thinking about what I am doing.  The 4x4x4 cube still requires thought and truth be told I never quite mastered that but the motivation died at that point.

This whole experience however mirrors something that comedian Deven Green once said, that you can tell when there's an "adult" in the room because when you tell a child to go and play they do just that, they go and play and don't ask questions.  Adults on the other hand ask countless questions to define boundaries, how long can I play, can I do this, can I do that etc.  This mentality is one that is borne of an aversion to the open ended nature of life.  The reality is that the older we get the less we are able to cope with the concept of life without restriction.  We complain about the restrictions life places on us, our obligations, our responsibilities, all the things life throws at us, but much like the scene in the Matrix where Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the first Matrix failed miserably because it was too perfect, humanity rejected the idea of utopia because it needed struggle to survive, it had to have something to fight against and feel a sense of accomplishment when it overcame that adversity.  This reflects a mentality that we gain with age in that we expect life to be difficult and find it hard to find happiness in the moment because we don't expect happiness to be easy to find.

When I was younger I didn't think about the world as much as I do today, I just lived in it.  I was a child that played and had fun and did what I wanted to do, then I grew up and with age that system of restrictions we are taught to think in terms of began to shape my thought process until creativity was largely strangled.  I am very good at completing clearly defined tasks but I don't think that ability is something of great merit for me because I think it's something we are all conditioned to develop.  Creativity on the other hand is something that you can't learn, you either have a creative mind or you don't, it's not easy to mimic and as the attempts by AI to create art have proven, taking a bank of existing creations and regurgitating it isn't enough to create something new and fresh.

I want to nurture the mindset I once had where creativity flourished and the only way I can see of doing that is to try and recapture the environment that existed when I approached tasks with the mindset of a child - to try it first and see what happens, rather than trying to predict what will happen before you even try.  It's not possible to incorporate that into every part of our lives but with my creative endeavours at least I think that's one place where I can start, by abandoning the idea that I need to understand every detail before I even try, because that's an objective that will never be achieved, even with the Rubik's Cube I understand some of the mathematics behind the puzzle and why the algorithms I learned works when applied to it but I would be lying if I said I could explain the entire concept in every detail and I don't need to be able to do that to get enjoyment out of solving it and seeing how fast I can do it.