Creativity
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi · first published 1996
54% recommend46% neutral
Why HN recommends it
An interview-based study of how creative people across many fields develop and make discoveries. Its cross-field perspective makes it well suited to anyone curious about how creativity actually works.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. The author's objective is to offer an understanding of what leads to these moments, be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab, so that knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists to politicians and business leaders, poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individ
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…please. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied many successful individuals in a systematic way and acknowledged the inherent problems with this approach. Read his book instead of this: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-... Finally: "Those who have done really great things generally report, privately, that it is better than wine, the opposite sex, and song put together." This is strongly contradicted…
on “A Stroke of Genius: Striving for Greatness in All You Do (1993)” ↗His book Creativity is also excellent, particularly for entrepreneurs. http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I...
on “Flow” ↗His other book, Creativity, is far more relevant to HN. It is a set of interviews with creative people, exploring how their creative capacities developed. http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I...
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗A more in-depth exploration of the topic is in Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I...
on “How Geniuses Think” ↗I would suggest Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [1] I have not read the book yet but it is on my reading list. I'm currently going through "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience"…
on “Ask HN: Best books/articles/etc on creativity?” ↗His point about cross-polination of fields leading to innovation is also made extensively by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his two books "Flow" and "Creativity". I'd highly recommend them to anyone who is interested in the process of creativity (he looks at it in a number of different fields), or who is interested in human behavior (especially one's own).
on “Step Outside Your Own Head (includes insights into DHH, Gmail, and Quicksilver)” ↗I love Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I had a professor in college who taught 'Introduction to Creativity' and was extremely passionate about teaching the ways of Csikszentmihalyi. We the students were inspired and intrigued by her passion about his ideas nearly as much as his ideas themselves. My friend…
on “Productivity and Flow” ↗Enjoy this phase! Idea generation can be a lot of fun. Get some books to stimulate. I've gotten a lot of mileage from "A Whack On The Side Of The Head" and "Creativity" (Csikszentmihalyi). Watch some TED talks. Go to your local unconferences and meet people and see what they're working on. Team up on those connections. Share your ideas as they come. Record everything…
on “Ask HN: What if I don't have an idea?” ↗That's great! Everyone loves this comment since so many of us are banking on it (or have lived it). It just brought to mind my reading of some interviews in "Creativty" (http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I...). There was more than one great mind who attributed his success to having a wonderfully supportive/responsible wife. He apologized for his sexist remark, but admitted…
on “Age and the Entrepreneur” ↗The psychologist is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and all of the quotes that the blog's author posted come directly from Csikszentmihalyi's book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Csikszentmihalyi is most widely know for his term 'flow.' http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-I... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
on “Creative People Say No” ↗Well, the name of the professor or his/her book isn't so relevant to the story, but I tend to agree with you. A real name would have been nice. (http://www.good.is/posts/secret-to-creativity-learning-how-t...) > When setting out to write his book Creativity, Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi contacted 275 creatives whose habits he wanted to study. The idea was to gain insight…
on “Creative People Say No” ↗Could you share some of the specific changes you made to your daily routine as a result of your exposure to this book? Also, have you read Csikszentmihalyi's Creativity?
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why” ↗…without even asking the main question: "Well are the papers any good?" And now I worry that papers could get worse simply because of a citation-inflation. I'm currently reading "The Systems Model of Creativity; The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi" and was really surprised at the rate of self-citation in the included papers. Now it does seem to me that the cited studies are relevant. And I can't judge…
on “Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database” ↗In Csikszentmihalyi's book "Creativity", pg 119, Barry Commoner is quoted: > I write with this pen [he removes a fountain pen from his breast pocket and holds it up]. And it’s very clear to me that my ability to think and write at the same…
on “On the Gift of Longhand” ↗…ways people might think. For example, many would think having living, middle-class parents would be a help on the path to eminence, and yet, not necessarily so...Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book "Creativity" notes that about three out of ten men and two out of ten women in his sample of eminently creative Americans (he calls them "exceptional") were orphaned before they reached their teens (and this study…
on “How I got into MIT when I was 14” ↗