The social norms, routines, and systems are designed to tie us down in a certain way of living. Artists and original thinkers live free from these norms; they are weird. Art seems to help us break the normal thought patterns of the mind and build connections that never existed otherwise; this enhances creativity. Your creativity is what enables you to make bold guesses or conjectures, which, with the right testing criteria, becomes knowledge. This is how we understand things by creating explanations.
“There is only one way of thinking that is capable of making progress, or of surviving in the long run, and that is the way of seeking good explanations through creativity and criticism.” — David Deutsch
In the growth of human civilization, the importance of creativity cannot be ignored. So, the ability to understand is not tied to IQ but to the creativity of an individual. A person who is more creative can easily understand things faster than others.
A physicist should do art on the side to increase one’s creativity; a software engineer should have hobbies that boost creativity.
Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, and Steve Jobs were all great at breaking mundane thought patterns. Art helps break the regular mundane thought patterns.
Creating something new is art. Building something from 0 to 1 is the work of art. It requires creativity. Humans are great at guessing.
Sam Altman mentions creativity as one of the most important skills of the future, which will be in high demand.
There is no magic pill for creativity. It is the skill that needs to be earned. What one can do is only offer a blueprint on how to achieve it.
One fundamental skill AI lacks is that it cannot create new knowledge, but humans can. The demand for creative people will be more than ever in the future with AI.
“So to be a creative person, you need to ‘feed’ or ‘invest’ in yourself by exploring uncharted paths that are outside the realm of your past experience. Seek out new dimensions of yourself—especially those that carry a romantic scent.” - Steve Jobs
You need to improve your framework of understanding to have a bigger canvas for connecting dots. Read new things, new ideas. Explore unknown territories to expand your understanding. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.
Unfortunately, jobs and careers tend to eat up that liberty to create the range required for creativity.
“Don’t be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the Career.” - Steve Jobs