2023-06-24 16:29:33 > [!-cf-]+ [[Related notes]] > - [[Focus pressure]] If you're doing [[Active imagination]] or creative work, part of what you have to do is "just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way" ([[Ref. John Cleese 1991 - Creativity in management (open mode vs closed mode)]]), and trust that sooner or later good things will come. Jung talks about this with respect to [[Ref. Jung 1916 - The transcendent function|the transcendent function]]: >"He must make the emotional state the basis or starting point of the procedure. He must make himself as conscious as possible of the mood he is in, sinking himself in it without reserve and noting down on paper all the fantasies and other associations that come up. Fantasy must be allowed the freest possible play, yet not in such a manner that it leaves the orbit of its object, namely the affect." >—[[Ref. Chodorow (ed) 1997 - Jung on Active Imagination]] John Cleese talks about this with respect to creativity: > So, now you know how to get into the [[open mode]]. The only other requirement is that you keep your mind gently round the subject you're pondering. You'll daydream, of course, but you just keep bringing your mind back, just like with meditation. Because, and this is the extraordinary thing about creativity — if you just keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious. Probably in the shower later, or at breakfast the next morning, but suddenly you are rewarded out of the blue, a new thought mysteriously appears. If you've put in the pondering time first. > —John Cleese, [[Ref. John Cleese 1991 - Creativity in management (open mode vs closed mode)]]. Not the same idea, but related, is the idea that great scientists have 10 or 20 burning questions that they keep around, keep on the back burner, while they're waiting to find an angle of attack. I think Feynman said this, but can't find that. [[Ref. Richard Hamming 1986 - You and your research]] said it. I made one of those a while ago [[List of questions that I come back to]], and also there listed a few people who have done the same. Ah! The source of the claim that Feynman did it is [[Ref. Gian-Carlo Rota 1996 - Ten Lessons I Wish I had been Taught]]: > Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: "How did he do it? He must be a genius!" > —[[Ref. Gian-Carlo Rota 1996 - Ten Lessons I Wish I had been Taught]]