{"id":33008,"date":"2015-01-19T17:43:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T17:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/?p=33008"},"modified":"2022-07-27T16:33:39","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T16:33:39","slug":"il-potere-creativo-degli-errori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/il-potere-creativo-degli-errori","title":{"rendered":"Embracing 404\u200a\u2014\u200aThe creative power of the mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

Every mistake is an opportunity in jazz.<\/em>
\n– Stefon\u00a0Harris<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The rational mind tends to think that the solution to a problem should and must be the straight line which connects point A to point B.<\/p>\n

No distractions or deviations are acceptable. In this case \u201crational\u201d stands for \u201ceconomic\u201d as well, in the sense that the solution to the problem is the one\u200a\u2014\u200aand only that one\u200a\u2014\u200awhich uses only the means necessary to get from here to there.<\/p>\n

This is not the case of the creative process where distractions often show different and maybe much more interesting (and usefull) ways to get to the point.
\nMistakes usually come from an absense of mind\u200a\u2014\u200aa temporary one indeed: it is no longer\u200a\u2014\u200aor just for few seconds\u200a\u2014\u200afocused on the problem and starts to hanging around, acting as it was not supposed to act.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re afraid to fail<\/h3>\n

\u201cwrite Daniel C. Dennett in<\/em>\", Daniel C. Dennett writes in Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why are we afraid to make them? Human evolution is based on mistakes after all. We might say that there wouldn\u2019t be any if there were no errors at all. We become better while doing errors, taking the wrong way, misunderstanding facts and reality.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re afraid for the simple reason that we don\u2019t want to be judged on the base of how many times we fail. But we fail once or more times, that\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n

The straight line<\/h3>\n

We were raised to think that the solution is just in front of us and that only a straight line can bring us there. Much more than this, while trying to solve a problem, we assume only one point of view: our own. It\u2019s difficolt to be someone else because we already know (or we suppose to know) how our brain works. Mistakes are unconscious dislocations of our point of view: even if we don\u2019t realize it, we\u2019re considering the problem from a view which is slightly different from the usual one. It\u2019s like taking another path when we are driving our car (not the wrong one, just another one) and soon we discover:<\/p>\n

\n

    \n
  • That the new one is better<\/li>\n
  • That the old one was wrong<\/li>\n
  • That the new one is wrong<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    In fact mistakes allow us to get back to where we were coming from or just take another path.<\/p>\n

    Control can blind us<\/h3>\n

    Why we can\u2019t often see the right path to the solution? Because we\u2019re too focused on following the path, the one that we presume is correct. Instead of using our mind to search for different solutions we use it to check the control panel: speed is ok, I\u2019ve got enough gasoline, weather is fine, let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

    \n

    What we usually name \u201cmind\u201d is just control: we don\u2019t let the mind work free but we force it to work the way it is supposed to work. We\u2019re wasting a lot of intellectual energy just thinking we\u2019re thinking the right way and trying to avoid mistakes. But mistakes can be very creative and helpful: they stress the weaknees of our thinking, they arouse doubt.<\/p>\n

    They\u2019re finally for our own good.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Cerchiamo sempre di evitare gli errori ma, a meno che non siamo cardiochirurghi, non dovremmo.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,199,200,150],"tags":[197,198,196],"class_list":["post-33008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-creativita","category-creativity","category-design","tag-creativita","tag-creativity","tag-errori"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinopietropoli.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}