[Jewelry making - Article 00531] - Re: [Orchid] Concentration and productivity

[Marty Reynard]

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    This phenomenon is referred to as "state-dependent learning," i.e. a
    phenomenon in which the retrieval of information is enhanced when a
    subject (human or rat!) is in the same physiological and sensory
    state as during the encoding (i.e. learning) situation.  My feeling
    about "creativity" is that humans are so idiosyncratic in terms of
    what can trigger the creative flow, that the optimal conditions at
    any particular time are probably extremely variable.  Also, the
    retrieval of information (as in memory for a test) is on a very
    different level than the mysterious leaps we make in arriving at new
    forms, ideas.  It may be that breaking from the same physiological
    and sensory state is exactly what quite often is required! 

    There is a wonderful scene from Woody Allen's "New York Stories" in
    which Lionel (Nick Nolte), a bohemian abstract painter, cranks up the
    heavy rock music and then enters that "flow" (which I believe
    necessitates the suspension of rational thought).  Like a bear, he
    moves around his huge canvas, spreading paint in an almost
    involuntary way.  But what works one time, may not work at all on
    another, as we all know...sometimes we require stimulation to bring
    us "up" and get the juices going...at other times we are annoyed at
    the intrusiveness: our emotional states are very changeable. 

    But what I find very interesting psychologically (my Ph.D. is in
    clinical psych) is the extraordinary "superstitiousness" of my fellow
    makers...we will organize our tools in an obsessive way, perform
    repetitive procedures the same way hundreds, thousands of times.  We
    often need things to be "just so."  While this simplifies many tasks,
    it can also limit the degree to which we experiment to learn more
    efficient ways of doing repetitive procedures.  I'd be curious to
    find out how others relate to this "obsessive" aspect to our
    art/craft.

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