Traits of the Creative Thinker: Notice the less than obvious

Ever since I was a kid I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the ground directly outside of the car as it speeds down the road. I like to notice the different types of dirt and dust and the particular way it drafts up to the curb, edge of the grass or the highway median. There are always little bits of metal, sometimes trash. Little plants grow, bugs crawl around, it’s about what you would imagine.

What I’ve always thought to myself when looking at these particular moments in time and place is how completely unique each spot is. I could never recreate it and I will never see it again, but all of these little views add up to a larger sense of what happens in a particular place. Not sure what I learn from it, maybe nothing but I believe in NOTICING THINGS.

The people I know who have great ideas and amazing creative vision are all NOTICERS. They look for the OUT-OF-FOCUS THINGS and make LESS THAN OBVIOUS CONNECTIONS. They allow the unimportant to seep into their daily narrative.

I’ve learned that spending time contemplating things you already understand or expect, does nothing to stretch an exercise your mind. To be a true creative thinker you have to take the many opportunities available to NOTICE SOMETHING NEW…..you have to develope an original perspective from these opportunities.

Yossi Milo has a series of photographs that embody this concept of noticing.

These are all stolen moments from driving down the highway. Brilliant.

I found this artist via: NOTCOT

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