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Great Insights on Human Creativity: Transforming the Way We Live, Work, Educate, Lead, and Relate

by Efiong Etuk, Ph.D.

432 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0830; ISBN 1-55395-116-6; US$19.95, C$30.50, EUR19.90, £13.80

The right to be creative and successful - the most fundamental, but hitherto overlooked, human right - is uncovered and presented in words that will be hard to ignore or to forget. An astonishing collection of insights into human nature by the world's greatest thinkers and scientists conclusively demonstrate the centrality of creativity in human life, its primacy among the forces that drive human behavior, and the necessity of its actualization, both for personal fulfillment and for responsible social and environmental behavior. Designed as a treasury of wit and practical wisdom on creative parenting, creative aging, creative education, creative work, creative management, and creative leadership, Great Insights on Human Creativity provides the tools we need to foster creativity in homes, schools, institutions, organizations, and national societies and, thus, to build a more fulfilling, truly human, civilization. This milestone book is packed with insights you will cherish for the rest of your life.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book It's a "beautiful" world: record production and consumption of goods and services; eradication of hitherto incurable diseases; healthier lives and longer life spans; instantaneous communication across the globe; scientific breakthroughs; a long list of technological marvels; unprecedented levels of physical comfort and material well-being. But, how could "the most brilliant civilization in human history" bring about so much misery, anxiety, stress, and insecurity? How could "the highest standards of living the world has ever known" leave practically everybody dissatisfied with life? To illustrate: Why are there so many "emotionally disturbed children" and "troubled young people?" Why do so many students "hate school," or perceive their academic experience as an inconvenience they would rather avoid? Why are there so many "busy-yet-bored employees" whose hearts are not in their daily work? Why do modern workplaces engender so much alienation, stress, burnout, and nervous breakdown? Why are there so many "outwardly successful, and yet emotionally troubled" executives? Why do so many rich people view life as "empty and meaningless" and yearn for "something" they say their material success does not give them? Why are leaders finding it increasingly difficult to lead? Why are the people increasingly unwilling to follow? Why has the vast majority of human beings become "the forgotten four-fifths?" Why, metaphorically, do most people go to their graves with their stories untold and their music still inside: unplayed and unheard? Conventional wisdom regards these as separate problems, and attributes them to such factors as neurosis, genetic inferiority, culture deficiency, dependency, deviant character, lack of achievement motivation, dysfunctional family, learning disability, inferior teaching tools, incompetent leadership, and other similar "explanations." Depending on what is perceived as the "cause" of specific problems, various solution strategies have been proposed and tried, including therapy, counseling, behavior modification, mass literacy, more modern learning devices, management reforms, new technology, and so on. The limited success (abysmal failure, in some cases) of many of these strategies hardly needs elaboration. Only recently has it been realized that many of the widely reported psychological and social problems that are afflicting individuals and societies are not separate crises, but aspects (or symptoms) of a single fundamental problem: undiscovered, underutilized, or actively repressed human potential and, consequently, a deeper lack of fulfillment in people's lives. Bringing together some of the most illuminating interpretations of human nature, Great Insights on Human Creativity observes that, in the near-total focus on material well-being, humanity has inadvertently reduced its existence to one partial aspect and, in the process, neglected what is most important in people's lives: their creativity and, therefore, their personal sense of worth. Drawing upon authoritative scientific conclusions, anecdotal evidence, and the accumulated wisdom of the ages, Great Insights on Human Creativity conclusively demonstrates the inherence of creativity in human nature, its primacy among the forces driving human behavior, and the necessity of its recognition, development, and actualization for personal fulfillment and responsible social behavior. Arising from this conclusion, Great Insights on Human Creativity argues that "if we sincerely want to deal with increasingly complex global problems and to build a more viable, truly human, civilization, what is needed is a system that allows people to experience themselves as intelligent and creative, and that also enables them to engage their creative talents in significant and beneficial social and environmental initiatives and, thus, to find meaning and fulfillment in their lives." Contrary to commonplace assumptions, Great Insights on Human Creativity demonstrates that: Parenting is more than "paying for college tuition" or providing one's children with the finest things of the marketplace. More than anything else, it is helping each child to recognize and to respect the integrity of his or her unique abilities and, therefore, to develop a solid sense of personal worth. The real purpose of education is not the transmission and acquisition of knowledge, per se. It is enabling each student to discover what he or she is naturally good at and/or passionate about and, then, providing him or her with the tools - including academic knowledge - to succeed in areas of his or her maximum potential. The ultimate reason why people work is not pay and benefits, but the opportunity to associate with fellow human beings in an important undertaking that beneficially engages one's unique abilities and gives meaning to one's life. Management is not only getting things done through people. It is, also, making work a meaningful and fulfilling experience for each employee, and transforming the workplace into a collaborative community of mutually-supporting individuals, helping one another succeed in their various areas of responsibility. Leadership is not just the ability to influence others to do what one wants them to do. Enlightened leadership is the ability to inspire one's constituents to excel, and even to lead, in areas of their unique abilities. National development is only partly economic growth and material well-being. The other part is the extent to which a country is able to mobilize and harmonize the unique abilities of all its members for the common good. Great Insights on Human Creativity, the first-of-its-kind collection of wit and practical wisdom on "creative parenting," "creative aging," "creative education," "creative work," "creative management," "creative leadership," and "creative citizenship," provides the tools we need to foster creativity in our homes, schools, corporations, institutions, and national societies: Raise creative, self-confident children. Make learning in our classrooms exciting, meaningful, and individually rewarding. Help students to recognize and to excel in areas of their greatest potential and, thus, to feel good about themselves and school. Humanize our organizations. Make work a meaningful and fulfilling experience and, thus, enhance workers' productivity, commitment, and self-esteem. Enable women, minorities, and other vulnerable members of society to recognize and more fully tap their creative potential for a more meaningful, purposeful, and fulfilling existence. Harmonize our unique abilities and insights in tackling the great world problems of our time and in building a more fulfilling global society. Great Insights on Human Creativity is intended for wide readership and is designed as an easy-to read, easy-to-apply, personal companion. Here are a few of the reasons why you need this revealing and sobering new book: The wisest, sanest, and most illuminating ideas for our time, pinpointing the roots of our current crises and opening up new prospects for tackling them. The largest work of its kind and the most comprehensive reference resource on human creativity: authoritative, revealing, and provocative, with thousands of insights you will not find anywhere else. Penetrating insights into human nature shatter many of the myths and misleading assumptions that have prevented large segments of the human population from ever discovering their talents, kept others functioning well below their inherent capacities, stripped most people of their personal sense of worth, and afflicted the world with so many psychological and social problems. Highly applied focus on practical human concerns (e.g., childrearing, education, work, leadership, and social relations) makes this book an indispensable guide for parents, teachers, students, corporate executives, workers, counselors, therapists, and social workers. Extraordinary words of wisdom by the world's greatest thinkers make Great Insights on Human Creativity a treasure trove of ideas for high-impact speeches, presentations, seminars, reports, meetings, term papers, memoranda, and other special occasions. Thematic arrangement of insights makes it easy to locate ideas for a particular need. Collectively, insights provide the boldest and most powerful argument for human rights, especially the right to be creative and successful. Increasing creativity-consciousness and the global sense of urgency regarding human potential and its actualization suggest that the people you are working with, relating to, or responsible for, probably own and have read this book; and they will expect you to have done so and to relate with them accordingly. To a world that has been tottering from one set of life-threatening crises to another, Great Insights on Human Creativity provides a critical road-map for the much-needed global renaissance. And it does so in words that will be hard to forget or to ignore! The test of pudding is the eating. Below is a small sample of the thousands of statements you will read in Great Insights on Human Creativity. Collectively, they have provided both inspiration and direction for this five-volume project. Teachers kill creativity by inducing students to give them the answers that students think teachers expect. Answers that are expected cannot be creative. -- Russel L. Ackoff. Lacking absolutes, we will have to encounter one another as people with different information, different stories, different visions -- and trust the outcome. -- Walter Truett Anderson. We are moving onto increasingly thin ice, and a general collapse of civilization is imminent unless we change directions. -- The Club of Rome. A pay check is not enough to base one's self-respect on. -- Peter F. Drucker. If, as is generally conceded, the world is in a rather sorry mess, crying for solutions to problems that are staggering in complexity and magnitude, the encouragement of creative thinking would seem to be the most necessary and immediate goal of all concerned people. -- George R. Eckstein. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. -- Albert Einstein. In our attempt to improve the world, have we been fighting the smoke instead of the fire - the symptoms instead of the disease? -- Jack Forem. [The human] heart is restless unless he has found, and fulfilled, meaning and purpose in life. -- Viktor E. Frankl. We are more in need of a human renaissance than we are in need of airplanes and television. -- Erich Fromm. Unless we cope with the ways in which modern society oppresses the individual, we shall lose the creative spark that renews both societies and men. Unless we foster versatile, innovative and self-renewing men and women, all the ingenious social arrangements in the world will not help us. -- John W. Gardner. What seems different in yourself; that's the rare thing you possess. The one thing that gives each of us his worth, and that's just what we try to suppress. And we claim to love life. -- Andre Gide. We need visionary parents - mothers and fathers who will study their children diligently...and converse with them perceptively in order to identify and draw out each child's uniqueness. -- Bill Hybels. It is now time to ask the universe a new cosmological question: "What is Love?" No longer is it the job of one man alone to ask, but the job of all humanity. -- August Jaccaci. Is not the true purpose of education to help you to find out, so that as you grow up you can begin to give your whole mind, heart and body to that which you really love to do? -- Jiddu Krishnamurti. The way children are born and raised depresses their potential for learning and creativity; the way young people experience the struggle for material survival results in frustration and resentment. -- Ervin Laszlo. You are you, unique, important to the universe, and you should assess your own worth instead of letting others do it for you. -- Sanders G. Laurie and Melvin J. Tucker. No psychological health is possible unless [the] essential core of the person is fundamentally accepted, loved and respected by others and by himself ... -- Abraham H. Maslow. We create in constructive ways, or we create in destructive ways; either way, creative energy finds expression. -- Dan Millman. It is not on economics that human societies must be based but on human relations. --Ashley Montagu. The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. -- Ralph Nader. Each of us has a piece of the puzzle of solving the great world problems of our time and creating a more just, humane, and beautiful world....If everyone who loved to create beauty did so, we would live in a beautiful world. If everyone who loved cleanliness and order, cleaned up, we would live in a clean and orderly world. If everyone who yearned to heal the sick did so, we would live in a healthier world. If everyone who cared about world hunger shared his creative ideas and acted to alleviate the problem, people would all be fed. -- Carol Pearson. Civilization is fundamentally spiritual. And the spiritual destiny of human kind is unity and love for each other. -- Richard J. Spady and Cecil H. Bell, Jr. The major error of the last century has been the assumption that a total society can be organized upon an economic motive, upon profit. -- Frank Tannenbaum. Because creativity is so natural to human life, blocking the flow of creativity will result in pent-up energy and frustration. --Terry Lynn Taylor and Mary Beth Crain. There is little evidence that the pursuit of an ever-increasing standard of living is conducive to happiness. -- Robert Theobald. The future of our civilization depends upon the quality of the creative imagination of our next generation. -- E. Paul Torrance. Development must...be aimed at the spiritual, moral and material fulfillment of man in his entirety, both as a member of society and as an individual... -- UNESCO.

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About the Author

Dr. Efiong Etuk is a leading creativity scholar, writer, and consultant. Proponent of "The Right to Be Creative" and a global creativity-consciousness, he speaks and writes extensively on strategies for building creativity-friendly and, therefore, humanly more fulfilling families, schools, workplaces, institutions, and national societies.

Visit the author's main site at www.global-creativity-network.net

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Sample Excerpts

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Catalogue Information

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