My Name is Andrew Langalis and I am a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. This semester I am in a writing seminar focused on the Oulipo- a French literary group based upon writing under literary constraints. We’re required to write a literature review based off topics within the course so I chose to write on the effects of constraint on creativity in writing and product development. I came across your dissertation through the school library and wanted to tell you that is has been eye opening and most helpful in writing my paper. Thank you for dedicating a portion of your life to its creation. Your work has made my work much easier and more enjoyable than expected and for that I say thank you. Hope all is well. Your blog is pretty cool by the way. There are few professionals with your background brave enough to write the way you do, keep it up.

All my best,
Andrew

Tony,

Thank you for your insightful comments. I enjoyed your example of the Apollo 13 mission and the constraints that forced creativity. I will head over to the LinkedIn discussion you provided to check it out.

Laws and rules likely do provide the right constraints to encourage creativity in positive and negative ways. Society does need the guidelines and framework to follow but these constraints should be questioned, understood and sometimes creatively worked around. Often when faced with these constraints and obstacles is when some of the best creative ideas and solutions can be made. Limitless options can be paralyzing and actually produce less creative ideas at times. By following the exercise I mention above, you are putting your own rules and laws on your creative thinking process to help produce greater results and provide the limitations that our brains need to think creatively.

Discussions around limitations always make me think of the Apollo 13 mission – you’re stuck in space, you have a limited selection of objects available, and if you can’t think creatively you’re going to run out of oxygen. A somewhat stressful situation, but one that led to a huge amount of focused creative thinking.

Your post also reminds me of a recent discussion in a LinkedIn group about the way in which laws can encourage creativity (link below). In the discussion I referred to a great TED talk by Larry Lessig in which he gives three useful examples of how the existence of a ‘law’ caused people to challenge it with new ideas. It’s as if our laws constitute the ‘box’ of our existence, and it is important to regularly test these laws to see whether they are still fit for purpose.

How can laws encourage creativity? https://www.linkedin.com/groups/How-can-laws-encourage-creativity-7494850.S.5947599197007020033?trk=groups_items_see_more-0-b-ttl