> Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened. In other words, we would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be. -[Albert Hirschman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Otto_Hirschman), via [Malcolm Gladwell](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all)
Might treating something as an art project sidestep political and personal issues?
> In my experience, the main obstacle to problem solving is an entrenched ideology. The great thing about making a movie or a piece of art is that that never comes into play. All the ideas are on the table. All the ideas and everything is open for discussion, and it turns out everybody succeeds by submitting to what the thing needs to be. Art, in my view, is a very elegant problem-solving model. – [Steven Soderbergh](http://www.deadline.com/2013/04/steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-address/)
> I don’t mean to give you a Zen koan, but the work I did is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don’t know. That’s why I can’t tell you, I don’t know what I’m doing. And it’s the not knowing that makes it interesting.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Russell Davies collected several good examples of [how creative work is often not complicated, just hard](http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2013/01/its-not-complicated-its-just-hard.html).
More evidence [piles up](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5060)…
> If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that’s one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it’s not our fault if we can’t do something as good.
> I’m not saying there’s no such thing as genius. But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right. – [Paul Graham](http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html)
To which I’d add that if you think you’re a genius, you’re probably just being lazy and [too impatient](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=5060) to do things the right way.
Great design is both extremely simple and incredibly difficult to achieve.
Simple, because it requires only a very few activities–observing people and expressing ideas–and those are not very complicated to perform. There are certainly tricks of the trade, and more or less efficient ways of doing these things, but the core actions are not complex.
Difficult, because the energy and dedication required to do these activities broadly, deeply, and thoroughly enough to find the *right* design solutions is hard to achieve. Most people [don’t have the patience](http://kennethto.tumblr.com/post/9359336429/when-you-first-start-off-trying-to-solve-a) to get there; instead, they settle too early to avoid the discomfort of [not “knowing”](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=4619).
I still believe the most important thing I do as a designer is [tolerate ambiguity](http://bob.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=4079). And it’s still the hardest part of my job.
>”Once upon a time.” Four words. I don’t need to say anything more, and yet you know at once what it is you’re about to hear. You may not know the precise contents. You may not recognize the specific characters. You may have little notion of the exact action that is about to unfold. But you are ready all the same to take on all of these unknowns, the uncertainties, the ambiguities. You are ready to succumb to the world of the story…
> First, there is that semblance of distance. We are not in the now, but rather in some place in the removed past…
> Distance is a psychologically powerful tool. It can allow us to process things that we would otherwise be unable to deal with—and I mean this in both a literal and a more metaphorical, emotional sense—and it frees up our mind in a way that immediacy does not.
> Second, there is the vagueness, the deliberate lack of specificity…that which scares us in real life—the lack of definitions, rules, clearly defined borders and boundaries—is not only unscary but entirely welcomed in the fairytale…I can indulge in abstraction and play, engage my curiosity and foster my creativity, and remain the whole time protected by that vague veneer of “once”.
[An insightful article and nice tribute to Maurice Sendak](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/literally-psyched/2012/05/08/the-power-of-once-upon-a-time-a-story-to-tame-the-wild-things/).
> We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom. – [Michel de Montaigne](http://quotevadis.com/post/20780660637/michel-de-montaigne-we-cannot-be-wise)