Ignorance can be Creative

It's always good to work at the top of your intelligence and do research when you need to, but doesn't ignorance spur creativity?

Doesn't some of your best stuff come from trying to figure things out?
Explore what you don't know, what you don't understand and don't be afraid to make things up.
Emotional complexity is interesting. Not knowing how you feel about something before you start is riskier, but also potentially richer.
At its best, creative stuff creates a map to uncharted territory - an attempt to describe ignorance. Whether its finding a new solution to a problem at work or painting a masterpiece, it's at once totally new but it also makes complete sense.
Most people are scared of ignorance. Think about old maps, whenever there was an unexplored area of the map it would be labelled "here be dragons." They just projected all the fear and anger and everything terrifying projected onto the unknown. That's how people treat the unexplored territories in their own heads. Dragons are lurking around every corner.
It's the artists job to brave the dragons and try and describe what is actually there. Instead of fearing your own ignorance, get excited every time you find one of these areas. Move boldly into it and explore.
That doesn't mean what you'll produce is scary, a comic strip like Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts (at its height) faced the unknown as squarely as Death of a Salesman or Hamlet.
Ignorance may be bliss to some, but to us, it's just potential genius!

Comments

[Alexander Olenloa-King]

Sometimes, it is actually the possession of knowledge that stifles creative abilities. Ignorance births the confidence to follow through on creative insights. This is what I refer to as the confidence of ignorance.