Blog Post 4

I attended the TedxBYU event a few months ago. It was incredible. My favorite talk that night was by Brian Kershisnik, a fairly well known artist. His Ted Talk was titled "Harvesting from Chaos."

Near the beginning of the talk he says "to be human is to be creative." I've thought about that phrase a lot over the last several months. I know a lot of people who insist that they aren't creative because their mind finds it easier to understand math or science instead of art. However, I like the idea that we are all born to be creative to some extent. As we've discussed in this class, creativity is similar to a muscle; the more you use it the stronger you'll get.

Another aspect of the talk I like is where he focuses on embracing the chaos in our lives. The reality is, our lives are chaotic and imperfect. Kershisnik suggests that we will succeed if we can learn to embrace the chaos and build our lives around it. He encouraged us to embrace the chaos by (1) taking notes to better remember the things we learn and notice and (2) to make mistakes in order to learn faster. I like the first suggestion because one of the hardest parts of creativity for me is brainstorming. I have a tendency to dismiss ideas that don't seem good right away--forgetting that ever great idea ever has been worked and reworked a million times. I like the second suggestion because I also tend to forget that even the great creatives of our time aren't flawless 100% of the time. It's good to remind myself that I can make mistakes!

I linked the Ted Talk above, and you can see more of his work on his website.