Some people consider creativity simply a tool for success. Such a definition is readily understood and is easily used as a motivator. It has its origins in the "creatology" of 1940s America and Japan and has become a commonplace. Since the 1970s, more than 200 masters' theses and doctoral dissertations in Taiwan alone have taken creativity as their subject matter. Though creatology came late to mainland China, it has boomed there as well. Since it arrived there in the early 1980s, mainland scholars have produced more than 300 monographs on the subject.

Creatology has taken hold in the fiercely competitive corporate world as well. We live in an age in which success depends upon constant innovation and the rapid discovery of new ways to entice consumers to buy. As corporations strive to meet the ever-changing appetites of the market and make themselves stand out from the crowd, creativity has become more than just a watchword--it is the flash of brilliance for which everyone, boss or employee, blue-collar or white, yearns.

Author: Chen Wen-ling / Publisher: PsyGarden Publishing

Experience as creative font

Though the nearly perfect timing of the release of Project Insight and Creativity Tool Box might seem a little suspect, they soon reveal themselves to be anything but "creative handbooks" aimed at cashing in on the creativity fad. Rather than offer step-by-step procedures, Chen thrusts creative responsibility back upon her readers, leaving it to them to decide whether or not to experience "creativity" and the shadowy dark side of themselves that it will bring them into contact with.

From a strictly utilitarian perspective, Chen isn't the best of teachers. Her points are obscure, she doesn't provide steps to follow, she doesn't encourage success, and she doesn't give any answers. Instead, she leads readers on a journey. Like an "evil" big sister teaching a younger sibling to ride a bicycle, she often surreptitiously lets go of them as they weave and wobble along, leaving her terrified young students at a loss. Eventually, after falling down and crashing into things a few times, they figure out how to ride a bike and are able to enjoy that wonderful sensation.

Learning to ride a bike is a totally natural process--the trick is to discover how to unite yourself and the bike into a single entity. But this trick is something you have to figure out on your own. If your sister never takes her hand off the back of the bike, you'll never learn. Chen sees creativity as much the same, and therefore takes this kind of "evil sister" approach to teaching it. You're afraid of falling? You don't want to get back on the bike? You're worried that the bike will take you somewhere unfamiliar? Well, that's your choice to make. But if you do decide to embark on the search for creativity, it will lead you along the path to self-exploration and will help you discover your own creative spirit.

Creative literature

Project Insight and Creativity Tool Box came out at the same time. The two books, each a very literary account of the author's experience of creativity, are related to one another.

Project Insight describes a phenomenon common among inveterate travelers, many of whom travel not just to experience new things but, more importantly, to enjoy the sensation of "coming home" at the end of a trip. After an exhausting journey, this return gives rise to a very particular distillation of the experience, one that only the traveler himself can appreciate.

Chen has traveled the planet in pursuit of creativity. In 2002, she made a long, slow journey to the other side of the world with no particular objective in mind. Passing through New York and parts of Canada, she internalized the landscapes around her and noticed that the further inward she ventured, the more of herself she discovered. She then decided to go even deeper, to explore her unconscious mind. She began attending workshops, including a self-discovery course conducted on a small Canadian island and one on dreams in New York. As she got to know her "self," she came to understand that being creative means boldly experimenting with new things. She also learned that because "the constant collisions between our conscious and unconscious minds give rise to energy," the process of self-discovery feeds one's creativity. In other words, "Creativity isn't something you seek outside yourself; it's within you. To be creative, you need only look inside yourself."

Author: Chen Wen-ling / Publisher: PsyGarden Publishing

The Ah-pao within

Creativity Tool Box, on the other hand, is less an account of a physical journey and more a guidebook for spiritual travelers. In it, Chen seeks an artist named Ah-pao in a Hualien that is half fantasy and half real. After a long search, she realizes that everyone she has met either was Ah-pao or could have been Ah-pao, and eventually comes to understand that she too is Ah-pao.

The search for Ah-pao is the basis for a story that she wrote in 2004 about her life outside of the classes she was teaching at Hualien's Tzu Chi University. It also served as the inspiration for a workshop that she led in Hualien called "Searching for Ah-pao Year-Round." The workshop used techniques drawn from psychological counseling, including free writing, the creation of mandalas, conscious dreaming and dream analysis. She divided the course into four progressive sections--spring, summer, winter and fall--and began to search with her students. When it was over, she created 60 "Ah-pao cards" from her notes from the workshop, and added them as an appendix to Creativity Tool Box.

Free writing consists of writing the first thing that comes into your mind. The process is continuous--you spend no time reflecting on or polishing your words. The technique allows us to explore our inner worlds--repressed thoughts slip past our conscious controls and appear on the page. What comes out during the exercise can be startling in how very different it is from our workaday selves. These contents also represent the wellspring of our creativity.

Meditative tools

Making mandalas is another of Chen's techniques for "creatively playing." Mandalas, which arose in ancient India, are used in Buddhism to represent a worldview. But they do more than just map the world; they also chart our minds. Often used in meditation, mandalas are created by first drawing a large circle on a blank sheet of paper, then filling it with whatever random images come to mind. Though the principle is the same as that used in free writing, the images are often more effective than words at conveying what's on the mandala maker's mind. Typically, those mandala makers who have studied drawing the least produce the most startling works.

Then there is dream interpretation, which provides direct access to the unconscious mind. Dreams are beyond the control of the dreamer; they are purely the product of the unconscious mind. As psychologist Carl Jung has written, they bring into consciousness things buried deep inside our minds.

When Chen works with dreams, she has one student present a dream from the previous night for the others to discuss. The listeners treat the dream as their own, prefacing their associations and interpretations with an "If this were my dream...." They take turns asking the dreamer for details about the dream until the dreamer finally arrives at an interpretation of his own. Ultimately, the dreamer comes to realize that the dream has expressed something far beyond what he could have imagined or dared think in his conscious mind, and that dreams manifest the enormous power of the hidden places of our minds.

Getting in touch with our creativity is a gradual and mysterious process. Unlike most of consumer culture, this process is neither fashionable nor immediately gratifying. In essence, Project Insight and Creativity Tool Box suggest that creativity is something that can be attained, but that cannot be mass-produced. It is not something that can be commoditized.

But the production of creative works remains an important index of creativity, and creative works only come into being when a creator hones an "inner impetus" with the tools of the trade. In Project Insight, the author successfully discovers her own inner impetus, and offers readers the essence of what they need to embark on their own inward journeys. Creativity Tool Box, on the other hand, provides readers with a toolkit; it is up to readers to determine how to modify and apply them.

Some readers will be disappointed that these books didn't offer them "creativity in ten easy steps." But those who continue to explore their inner selves and dig deep enough will unearth a wellspring of creativity. When they do so, they'll appreciate how Project Insight and Creativity Tool Box resonate with their own souls and attest that they are in fact among the most useful books on creativity available.