shredding myths. everyone can tWist the ordinary

creative = advertiser?  Nahhhhh!

¿creative monopoly  = artists, musicians, performers, etc? NOOOOOOO!

… well, we all thought that. But no.

Today we know that creativity, the tWist, is a skill that can be developed. Don’t you believe me? Well, take a minute to remember your childhood:

Who was not a daydreamer back then? Who used to build stuff? What happened then? Simple, social reality and the education system, which are two sides of one coin, are designed to castrate these skills, because tWisting stuff is “dangerous”.

Creativity is the highest Human expression that we know of. It is not an accident that peformers achieve celebrity status; they materialize the ideal of creation, they create characters, people and fantasies. This grows on us unconsciously when we stop to think that one of the things that were tatooed in our heads is that the Maximum Creator is the Guy Upstairs, right? And, why do we loose our heads when we are near a celebrity? We invest time, energy on them… because not very deep inside us, that is what most of us aspire to become. Creativity is one of those common-denominator topics, from different perspectives, but we either shun or praise creative people.

Then, we all admire people who tWist the ordinary because we all somehow wish we were creative people. Truth is that we all have the dormant skill of tWisting, in different proportions of course. So, if the tool is there, what happens if I exercise it a little bit? What if I excercise it a “very lot”?

The point is that now you know that we can all tWist our reality, and generally speaking, to do that, we need:

Big guts. An idea that we really love. A method. Discipline. Tolerance to failure. Time.

Thanks for reading the tWistVox.

Do NOT listen to your parents, part I

Death. It has a way of putting everything into perspective, especially if it’s about to happen to you.

The British newspaper The Guardian published a story recently about an Australian palliative care nurse, Bronnie Ware, who had kept track of the regrets most frequently expressed by the dying. “Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom,” writes The Guardian.

As it turns out, the list is not at all surprising, but it is rather dismaying and infuriating, because although we all know that many of the things we do persistently, every single day of our lives we will come to regret when we no longer have time to do anything about it, and that we will regret not doing all those things we wish we had done, the vast majority of us continue on the same path, thinking that perhaps someday we might have the time. Until we don’t.

So, when we are told that the number one regret is I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me, it is maddening to think this may describe most of the human species. “When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it,” Ware writes, “it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

The number two regret is closely allied with the first: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. No shit, Sherlock…

“This came from every male patient that I nursed,” Ware, not at all surprisingly, states. “They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.”  So, spending time at work – probably at a job they did not enjoy and did merely to earn money – took time away from being with the ones they loved. We all know this, yet most persist on doing it.

Ware explains that while many women also shared this regret, they nevertheless did not spend as much time at work, since most of them belonged to an older generation and had not entered the workforce to the same degree as men. However, Ware continues, “All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.” One of the unintended side effects of female lib is that, as it has made it possible for more and more women to join the workforce, it has also made it possible for them to have a life filled with as many regrets as men. The joy.

We have all been told that the cornerstone of success is working hard.

…we have been told bullshit…

 Stay tuned for “Don’t Listen to your parents” Part II, coming up on April 1^st 2014.

desgarrando mitos. la creatividad es para todos.

creativo = Publicista?  Nahhhhh!

¿Monopolio creativo = artistas, músicos, actores, etc? NOOOOOOO!

… bueno, todos pensábamos que sí. Pero no.

Hoy en día sabemos que la creatividad, el tWist, es una habilidad, que se puede desarrollar. ¿No lo creen? Recuerden su niñez: ¿Quien no se imaginaba mil cosas? ¿Quién no construía otras mil? ???Entonces qué pasó? Sencillo, la realidad social y el sistema educativo, que son dos caras de la misma moneda están diseñadas para castrar estas habilidades, porque el tWist es “peligroso”.

La creatividad es la expresión más alta que conocemos en nuestra civilización. No es accidente que los actores logren status de celebridades, porque ellos materializan ese ideal de creación, lo cual adquiere enorme fuerza cuando pensamos que “El Creador” por excelencia es el de allá arriba, ¿no? Y ¿porqué perdemos el piso cuando estamos cerca de una celebridad? Les invertimos tiempo, energía… porque no muy en el fondo eso es a lo que aspiramos casi todos. La creatividad es uno de esos temas que es común denominador para todos, desde distintas perspectivas, pero  una aspiración al fin y al cabo. Nos referimos a los creativos como “está loco”, o “ese we  está ca…”, entre otros tantos.

Entonces, todos admiramos a las personas creativas porque todos aspiramos a ser personas creativas. Pero la realidad es que todos tenemos la habilidad de tWistear lo ordinario, en mayor o menor medida, y si ahí está esa herramienta, ¿qué pasa si la ejercito un poco, y si la ejercito “un mucho”?

El punto es que ahora saben que todos podemos tWistear todo lo que nos rodea, a grandes rasgos necesitamos:

Muchas wanas. Una idea con la que estemos clavados. Un método. Disciplina. Tolerancia al fracaso. Tiempo.

Gracias por leern al tWistVox.

tWist is microscopic observation; tWist es observación microscópica

watching closely puts you in a completly different perspective, lets you think laterally. Want to guess or speculate what is in the picture?
observar de cerca te pone en una perspectiva completamente distinta, te permite pensar de manera lateral. ¿Quieren adivinar o especular lo que está en la foto?

tWist para todos

La creatividad se ha asociado tradicionalmente a los artistas, publicistas y diseñadores. Pero qué tan cierto es esto? La realidad es que todos somos creativos. Sólo hay que recordar cuando eramos niños, todos creábamos cosas, mundos, nos imaginábamos monstruos y mil cosas.

Entonces… ¿Qué pasó? Educación y contexto. El sistema educativo mexicano está diseñado para “aprender”, pero no es aprender lo que nos enseñan,

Desde la primaria, hasta el posgrado…

nos obligan a Memorizar, de hecho, nuestros exámenes justo es eso lo que evalúan, nuestra capacidad de retención. Y no es que eso esté fatal, pero ¿qué tanto recuerdas hoy de tus años de educación básica? Muy poco, porque lo memorizaste, y como es natural, lo que memorices se olvida si NO lo UTILIZAS.

tWistear significa Pensar. Es decir, ¿Cómo le hago para echar a andar mi changarro?

Entonces, tómate una pausa y pregúuuuuntate: ¿Soy creativo, en lo que sea? (yo apuesto a que 98% de todos nosotros si lo somos). Ahora que sabes que sí lo eres, desarrolla ese tWist que traes dentro y haz que te lleve… a donde quieras llegar.

Happy tWisting/tWistea feliz.

Alex Berea