Empecé a leer este libro porque estoy estudiando el tema de la creatividad improvisada. Me gustó mucho porque además tiene como una influencia de la filosofia oriental, que es otra cosa que estoy estudiando. Descubrí también una interesante visión, algo romantica, pero no fuera de las -si se quiere- "teorias mas cientificas" de la creatividad. Tanto en lo que refiere a las definiciones de improvisación como a las deficiones del proceso creativo y otros conceptos relevantes relacionados con la creatividad como la motivacion, la percepcion, la imaginacion, incluso el humor, la acción y la práctica (estos últimos dos muchas veces apartados del concepto de creatividad).

No suelo hacer esto, pero a continuación copio un extrato del libro que me gustó mucho y, con el fin de que quede claro a través de un ejemplo, el ternor de las cuestiones que vuelca el autor y como lo hace:

“Una vida creativa es una cuestión riesgosa. Seguir el propio curso, no trazado por los padres, por nuestros pares, o por las instituciones, implica un delicado equilibrio de tradición y libertad personal, un delicado equilibrio de ser fiel a sí mismo y permanecer abierto al cambio.

Si bien en ciertas dimensiones se vive una vida normal, de todas maneras uno es un pionero que se aventura en un nuevo territorio, rompiendo con los moldes y modelos que inhibían los deseos del corazón, creando la vida a medida que avanza.

Ser, actuar, crear en el momento sin sostén ni apoyo, sin seguridades, puede ser el juego supremo, y a la vez dar miedo, que es lo contrario del juego. Entrar en lo desconocido puede conducimos al deleite, a la poesía, a la invención, al humor, a amistades para toda la vida, a la autorrealización, y ocasionalmente a un enorme impulso creativo. Entrar en lo desconocido puede llevamos también al fracaso, a la desilusión, al rechazo, a la enfermedad o a la muerte”.-

Este libro toca muchos de los conceptos relacionados con la creatividad sobre los cuales vengo aprendiendo y reflexionando hace ya mas de 10 años. Recomiendo ampliamente su lectura

While I think this well-written and I like the spiritual behind the artistic and practical, it feels disjointed and I didn't really get anything new from it. While it does apply to life, I think people involved in traditional creative endeavors, or else people who think differently than I, may benefit more from this book.

Maybe a little wispy in places, but mostly full of the sort of lessons and perspectives that I understand mentally but need to be reminded of Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over and Over....

A whirlwind of interconnected, deep revelations about art, psychology, religion, poetry and the creative process to take the reader into a higher plane of understanding. Written in a style dense as a black hole but containing as much energy as one of them. Highly recommended if you approach the book with the patience and diligence required to navigate through this forest of knowledge.

I refer back to the concepts in this book again and again.

Giving this a 1 feels harsh, but I don’t get the option of a 1.5.
There are many snippet moments of wisdom in these pages, but it’s fleshed out for me in stewed repetitive rhetoric. It occasionally stirs something up inside of me but found the last 2/3s of the book to be a real push.

Some nice research but actually, 210 pages later, I could’ve gotten it all in 50.

Deeply spiritual yet highly secular. I can already tell this is a book I will need to come back to. Everyone in every stage of life will have so much to gain from reading this, and yet still understand so little, only to gain more reread by reread. This is not just a book about the creative process, but about how to attain the spiritual wellbeing needed to maintain it.

“The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.”

Another book representative of my recently-favourite genre: "genre-less". Yes, it's sold as an improv skill-booster, but Nachmanovitch dips into every circle of the human hell and ties the ends together neatly with a taut viola string. When I mentioned to the friend who let me borrow this book ("it's meant to be passed around") that this was the author's only published book, he shrugged and riffed, "he said it all". Truth. Unfortunately, as the author is wailing away with his handsaw of personal experience into the fat tree trunk of collective experience, getting closer and closer to the core, I realized that I could read as many books about the incomprehensibility of life as I like and never have the "divine experience" myself: we can only ever allude with these imperfect words. Still, a great read, if you're into it.

One of the best books I read on creativity.

Two names sum up my my review of this fantastic book: Keith Jarrett and Gregory Bateson... well OK, and the fact that Nachmanovitch weaves together wisdom threads East and West, ancient and modern, in the arts and sciences to create this little masterwork on creativity. But if you know these two giants of creativity, you'll already know a lot about this book.

Keith Jarrett's life and work are a perfect example of Free Play in art music (jazz and classical) and Gregory Bateson's life and work (his friend and mentor and one of the founders of cybernetics) stand as a multi-disciplinary edifice of how to think about play, creativity, and freedom in the context of biological evolution, emergence theory, and mind-as-biological organization and embodiment. Embodied emergence, free play and the power of limits, yin and yang...

You Matter: feel inspired, create something!

Surrendering to complexity and uncertain beauty ahead is encouraging. It takes stillness to let all the noisy signals to die. Most overwhelmed feelings stem from a discrepancy of resources(capability, team) and the challenge.

Revisit the book when I need inspiration for creating beauty. The book reminds me of the film Soul by Pixar.

I don't have it in me right now to write all that I think about this book. I liked it. A lot. I spent time reading it; thinking a lot about Play and Improvisation and Creativity.

Understanding that I was really reading and thinking about what it means to be human. To be a healthy human. And I thought a lot about purpose and fulfillment as well.

I'll be reading this again. At the end of the year perhaps. It's a book I'll be giving to others. If you're reading this and you know me- don't be waiting for your present...just go find "Free Play" and read it :)