Creativity, surprise, and all that jazz

A great way to stimulate creativity is to make surprising connections.  Historically this sometimes happens on its own, in places where different cultures meet and surprise one another.

At the turn of the century, in the port town of New Orleans, people from diverse African- and Carribean-American backgrounds mingled with one another, as well as with everyone from Irish sailors to Native Americans. In their shared leisure time (often in local bars and bordellos, where a free spirit energized invention), a mix of blues and sappy parlor songs gave birth to jazz.

Of course, no-one back then knew that their curiosity about each others' "pop" music would lead to the invention of a cohesive, complex, and honored art form.  At the time, it wasn't high art but low entertainment.  Even the name jazz is very rough in its origins; those who first used it would be very surprised to see it on a sign at Lincoln Center! But the musical genius of a few was stimulated, and art was the result.

What this history has taught me is that surprise itself is an ingredient of creativity.  Seeking out the new, focusing on the perplexing, and mixing different types of things to see what they could do together are all ways of sustaining the emotion of surprise. Surprise leads to curiosity, and curiosity energizes creativity.