I read this week’s Wall Street Journal article “Fleeting Youth, Fading Creativity” (WSJ, Feb 20, 1010, p. W3) with fascination…
The article, by Jonah Lehrer, suggests the following:
- Scientific & technical revolutions are often led by younger
minds (think Newton, Watson, Einstein, Madame Curie, Jobs, Andreessen)
- Certain fields lend themselves to innovation by younger minds, including Physics, Math & Poetry, Chess
- There seems to be an inverted U-curve that describes human capacity for creative thought, with the top of the u-curve coming somewhere between the ages of 25 and 50.
- The disciplines of Biology, History, Novel-writing, and Philosophy might not peak until their late 40’s
- Many individuals have increased their creativity later in life by switching fields of study (thus potentially applying learnings from one field to another in a “intersectional” manner (see my prior blog post on this called “Intersectional Creativity& Mash-ups”)
One key part of this argument I do buy is this: when we are young, we are likely to take more risks and we are likely to be less encumbered by rules bestowed upon us by marriage, work, community, church, etc. In other words the YOUNGER MIND, in general, does have the advantage of being FREE to make key connections that the older mind has to work harder to achieve amidst a cadre of society-driven rules which have been enforced for a longer period of time.
While I don’t disagree with the premise that certain professions require young/fresh minds to attack them, the author neglected to mention the wide variety of creative careers that have taken off for LATE BLOOMERS in many fields.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Creativity at Any Age « Innovation Sparks
Author: Innovation Sparks
