Posted inEnvironmentHealthLifestyleMedia

Art and mind: Healing arts in public health spaces

By Dr Thirusha Naidu Creativity, like mental illness, is mysterious to most.  It is an inexplicable yet distinctly human attribute. Historically, creatives have been admired, revered, feared, ostracised and persecuted.  From the genius of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, to ingenious hackers or clever moms who conjure […]

Posted inEnvironmentGeneral

God, Darwin and Spinoza

People often ask me if I believe in God, and my honest answer is always: ‘It depends what you understand by the word “God”’. This word probably means something different for every person who professes such a belief, which is why there is such a thing as ‘orthodoxy’ in a church (let alone ‘dogma’): it […]

Posted inMedia

Bic, and why creativity matters

When the Bic Women’s Day outrage first hit the social media fan, I was driving back from the Tembe Elephant Park where my husband and I had spent our first anniversary. I am in Durban this week for the Loeries, so creativity is top of mind – which is relevant, because creativity is central to […]

Posted inGeneral

Nietzsche, Heidegger and creativity

In the course of preparing for a doctoral seminar on Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, I was struck, once again, by the creative thinking on the part of these epoch-making figures, as well as its implications for creativity. Freud’s creativity is evident, to mention only one thing, in the fact that, as far […]

Posted inGeneral

The Apple Watch, history and creativity

It’s a very good thing that TIME magazine’s tech writer, Lev Grossman, is an intelligent guy, even when he teams up with others, such as Matt Vella, in the writing of an article called “Wearing the Internet”, on Apple’s newly introduced Apple Watch (TIME, September 22 2014, pp. 28-33). Anyone less intelligent is likely merely […]

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Do schools kill creativity?

By Athambile Masola As a new teacher, I have a vested interest in education and I’m always wondering about how to be innovative. I recently had a SMART Board and a data projector installed in my classroom. I was astonished as my learners entered the classroom agog, declaring, “Ma’am your classroom’s been pimped … upgraded!” […]

Posted inGeneral

What is creativity?

How does it work? Is it mere imitation, or transformation, or could it be — under rare circumstances — “pure” creation, that is, out of thin air, as it were? This last possibility is captured in the Christian doctrine of “creatio ex nihilo”, which is attributed to God — the creation of the universe out […]