must be developed for a person to lead a happy and productive life.
Since our educational system develops the analytical function al-
most exclusively, here the focus is on achieving reliable access to
the creative function.
If you don’t use your creativity, you are living with half your
mind tied behind your back. Most people grossly underestimate the
power of their own creativity, because it was squashed so strongly in
school. Creativity isn’t just for artists, writers, and musicians. All of
us can use our creativity better. So vast is our creativity that even the
most creative people use only a small portion. If you remember any
of your dreams, you can get an inkling of how creative you already
are. The issue then isn’t how much creativity you may possess, but
whether you can access it and express it usefully. Dreams may be
thought of as images and ideas popping out of the unconscious
mind while you sleep. You will be learning to access that same cre-
ative function while awake.How Creativity Is Squashed
Creativity is handicapped with the idea that there is one rightway
to do some things and with the idea that questions have one right
answer. Your creativity was stifled at any early age. For example,
most of us allowed our parents to convince us that there is one
right way to eat. If you have traveled, you know that, when eating,
British people carefully pile food on the curved side of their fork.
Continental Europeans use their knife right-handed to push food
onto their fork, held in the left. Americans, although obsessed
with efficiency in other areas, have somehow decided that the
right way is to hold the knife in the right hand and the fork in the
left while cutting food, and then to put down the knife and trans-
fer the fork to the right before eating. Our clashing of metal eat-
ing implements probably amuses Asian people who use efficient
chopsticks.
This one right way theory is strongly reinforced in our educa-
tional system, where rigid adherence to multiple-choice tests deter-
mines course grades, who graduates, and who goes to college. A
multiple-choice test cannot measure someone’s ability to think cre-
atively. Life doesn’t come with answers laid out for easy selection.
Instead, you will enjoy far greater satisfaction by using the creative
part of your mind to create opportunities for yourself.134 Your Mind Is Not a Democracy