John Cleese on creativity

My take:
Anything enjoyable is a waste of time.

It is easier for me to go something that is urgent because there is no decision process. It needs to be done now...do it.

Ken said:

My take:
Anything enjoyable is a waste of time.

Click to expand...

My guess would be he means that you have to do the chores before you are allowed to play - its what parents teach - or what he said in the quote it an extension of the work before play principle.

Then of course, once you've done the chores the parents are too tired to play. Or the sun has passed and its raining and you can't go out to play. But at least you did get some worthwhile things done and well, play is fun rather than dull and meritorious so feel virtuous that you were industrious.

And RHJ - thank you very much for posting the link. I have made a copy of the principles and stuck it up next to my monitor. It is something I sort of knew, but seeing it put so succinctly really struck a chord and I will now try harder to implement it.

We watched this in my English class recently and I was going to post it but I've learned to use the Search Engine before doing that. Thanks for posting this video I think a lot of people can benefit from seeing it. I know it cleared up some things for me.

I saw this on another forum and, while I cannot fully agree with some of the things he says for myself (meaning that my creative process is a bit different) I find this presentation to be really, really, really entertaining.