With the New Year coming soon and people buying illegal fireworks across the border in Belgium,the Dutch Consumers Group for Safety and Awareness decided to use a parody on the terrorist videos many news stations around the world receive to warn of the dangers of fireworks abuse.

“A man should learn to detect and foster that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within far more than the luster of the whole firmament without. Yet he dismisses without notice his peculiar thought because it is peculiar.” Ralph Waldo Emerson. Once we have made up our minds and cast our biases towards something as big as an idea it is hard to look at the idea or subject in a different and more creative light. It takes intentional action to break out of this rut of thought. To activate more neural pathways several techniques like Oblique Strategies, a walk outside, or a good whack on the side of your head can be applied.
Deliberate actions such as Oblique Strategies –a flash card solution developed by Brian Eno in the Seventies and now an application on the Iphone-can be undertaken to shake up your deep-rooted belief that the only solution is a logical one by applying an oblique question to your problem. This logic or linear mode of thinking referred to from here on out as L-mode is our primary voice of thought. L-mode is very strict and linear. It is our little voice of logic and reason, and it demands to be heard. It is also L-mode that we use for processing language. (Cartwright) Now, the oblique question helps you go into a flow of thought also referred to as R-mode or rich mode thinking. This brings us to the old adage by Miller Williams of write drunk(R-mode) revise sober (L-mode), where the drunkenness will make us flow and be creative; while we check our work with full sobriety. Oblique questions like “what else is like this?” or “was your mistake was a hidden intention?” can help one take that different point of view and be a more inspired thinker.
A little exercise like a walk is a great thought starter too, the brain is always searching for a novel stimulus; it is build for adapting to a constantly changing environment. So, changing your environment is very important for stimulating fresh ideas or solutions to a problem. The evolving brain came about when we started to move out over the savannahs and travel across continents, where we were faced with new dangers and problems. Man had to be in constant alertness not to become some animal’s dinner and as such had to be quick thinking on his feet. (Medina) The changing environment and extra oxygen of a brisk walk through the woods can boost ones brain function. Henri Poincare, the famous mathematician, used a variation of this idea. He would write everything out and solve the easier problems right away. Of the harder problems, he would choose the easiest as a sub problem. He would then leave his office for a walk, only thinking about the sub problem. Soon an insight would present itself and he would break off his walk to write the new find down. After repeating this method he would have so many ideas and solutions that interlocked, making stable combinations. Walking undisturbed will get you in that R-mode type of unconsciousness. Poincare was obviously a great thinker and experimenter. Further in his works he writes that one of the great characteristics of the creative process is to let a great idea simmer for a while and work on dull task such as doing dishes -since great solutions are seldom found at once. Again to achieve that creative mode one must be in a sort of unconscious dream like state. (Simonton)
All this is about inviting the fast hare mode or r-mode to complement the slow tortoise mind. Sometimes a good whack upside the head is needed to get one out of a rut and looking at a problem differently. Different associations force the r-mode to initiate different searches; it helps to broaden the scope of material under consideration. For example the Zen koan ”what is the sound of one hand clapping” just doesn’t make any rational sense at all. This is like merging unlike patterns or reengineering of material. Some patterns cause novelty and can truly over clock your brain. William Shakespeare used verbal reengineering a lot in his work, coining several phrases we still use to this day “Full Circle”, ‘’Method to the Madness” and “Eaten out of house and home”. (Macrone) In early history, high priests would consult an oracle, more often than not the oracle’s answer would be a riddle, ambiguous and free for interpretation, proving the magic of an oracular whack upside the head.

Getting the proverbial whack upside the head is all and well but in the words of Henri Poincare, high achievers engage in the “preliminary period of conscious work which also precedes all fruitful unconscious labor” (Poincare). So there must be a balance between the conscious and unconscious in order to make full use of our corticoid talents. Together with this knowledge and use of the three techniques discussed above, one is set to make greater achievements.

Works Cited
Cartwright, Talula. Developing Your Intuition: A Guide to Reflective Practice. Center for Creative Leadership, 2007.
Claxton, Guy. Hare brain Tortoise mind: how intelligence increases when you think less. New York: Harper Perenial, 2000.
Macrone, Michael. Brush up your Shakespeare! 2000.
Medina, john. Brain Rules. Seatle: Pear Press, 2008.
Poincare. Mathematical creation.1924. Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1970.
Simonton, Dean. Scientific Genius. Cambridge University Press, 1988.