True creatives relax the fierce grips most of us place on sanity, societal norms, orthopraxy, trends, and well-meaning advice from friends and acquaintances, even relaxing the grip on having acquaintances. Foremost among these, the creative accepts insanity, allows it to dwell inside: allows the voices to speak, to be heard, to take over, voices which suggest new and totally different ways to think, to do, to sing, to view life, to write, to design that building.

I may learn a set of rules which seek to bind me to the doctrine of electrical engineering, biochemistry, pedagogy, painting, poetry, investment banking, mapmaking, archiving, heavy construction, medicine, the law, or managing a grocery store, but as a creative I use this knowledge as a springboard to think, to act out, to say, “well that’s all well and good, but what about this?”

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Pablo Picasso