As we pass from childhood into full-grown adults, we limit the weird (i.e. interesting) ideas that pass through our brain because of the knowledge we’ve gained.
“Double-U” doesn’t mean “double-me” because we know it’s just the letter “W”. Just one of the fun tricks of the mind that a child may point out because they are unbound by the knowledge and experience that comes with life experience and formal or self-education.
The most brilliant and exciting ideas are almost always outside the bounds of common knowledge and thus would be entirely ruled out by “normal” people.
We need to find a way to suppress our knowledge/experience and allow our minds to float “outside of the box.”
The first step is to set aside time “to be creative” and use that time to relax. Nothing in the world matters. The ideas of convention, the common expectations, the way things work. It matters as much during that time as it does to a 4-year-old. Why can’t you flap your arms fast enough to fly? What happens if I write letters backward instead of forward? What can I do right now that seemingly has no useful impact on my life?
The second step is to embrace failure. Don’t even acknowledge it. If a joke bombs, a piece of artwork looks like trash, or you just spent four hours “being creative” and nothing tangible came of it, so what. Laugh it off.
Creativity (accumulating brilliant ideas) is a cyclical process: you relax into a start of creativity, you see what comes from it, you don’t care how good or bad it is, this allows you to relax even more comfortably the next creative process, this leads to even better creative ideas and brilliant observations.
That process repeats and you get better and better at being creative. But it all begins with our ability or willingness to be stupid again that we might be brilliant.