Three Common Phrases That Are Crushing Human Creativity
Photo credit: Monstera Production
Language is powerful. It’s the fabric of our thoughts. It’s how we transfer thoughts from one person to another. It’s used to generate movements, inspire emotion, record history, establish and reinforce culture. Yet, some language can also entrap us, even enslave us if we let it. Particularly when a phrase is repeated so often it becomes common knowledge and is no longer questioned. Below are three such phrases we hear so frequently that through repetition have become “conventional wisdom,” but I believe, sadly, also crushing not only our motivation to remain curious, but creativity itself.
“It’s just your imagination.”
The more I learn about creativity and consciousness, the more I believe our “imagination” is the most powerful force in the universe. To dismiss it is to dismiss our humanity. In fact, look around you right now. Every single thing in the room surrounding you started out in someone’s imagination. The refrigerator is the result of probably fifty different imaginations colliding over years and over hundreds of cumulative inventions. Same for the computer, the chair, the rug, and the coffee maker.
Everything starts in the imagination. Let’s stop dismissing anything as “just your imagination” and instead follow our imaginations and see where they go.
“It’s just the placebo effect.”
We all grew up learning about scientific studies where the control groups got sugar pills and yet those control groups still saw some positive outcome. We were told “It’s just the placebo effect” at work, as if to dismiss these positive results as just a trick of the mind. Holy hell, what a miss!
Instead of dismissing these results as weird anomalies, why not learn about and embrace what’s behind the placebo effect? It obviously works SOMEHOW, so…why? Why does believing something will work increase the odds that it will? New research comes out all the time studying the placebo effect. I even remember reporting on a study that proved that the “placebo effect” can increase our creative abilities (more on that here). Yet the phrase still infects our perception of its mysterious powers and encourages us to resist looking any further.
“The science is settled.”
There was Big Bang. Serotonin affects depression. New brain cells don’t get created. Fluoride is good for you. The universe is 13.7 million years old. All settled science, right?
New studies question every single one of those “settled” sciences.
I’m no scientist, but I know enough about it to know the statement “The science is settled” is not only arrogant, it’s self-evidently false. Science is the continuous study of everything. And by everything I mean our infinitely complex universe. Seems as soon as science feels they’ve got something figured out, they learn something new that unravels conventions. Worse, some scientific groups get themselves organized institutionally around certain “settled scientific issues” and then even the most compelling counter studies can’t dislodge the money and politics involved in keeping that science settled.
How is the phrase “The science is settled” helping human progress? Maybe it’s why Max Planck once said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.”
These phrases impede our curiosity.
Advertising giant, Leo Burnett, once said, "Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people." Yet, interestingly, the parenthetical to all of these phrases is, “(so top being curious).”
“It’s just your imagination (so stop being curious).”
“It’s just the placebo effect (so stop being curious).”
“It’s settled science (so stop being curious).”
While we’re all being careful with our language not to offend each other, let’s also be careful with our language so we don’t crush human creativity. Let’s purge these phrases. They don’t help us progress. They don’t inspire curiosity.
They only force our creative pursuits into the confines of the conventional.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post like this.