Who Else Would Like To Learn Convergent Thinking In One Month, Even Without Giving Creativity Up?
The myth is that creativity is funny and analysis is tedious. Creativity appears boundless, while analysis feels like a prison of rules. That’s partially true. But partially true is false!
Divergent thinking is freeing — apparently
Since childhood, we all have liked freedom as the status of doing and saying anything that goes through our mind — no limits nor boundaries. Then parents and teachers have started boring us with rules — do that, but don’t do that else! It’s not a surprise that this emotional environment causes the rejection of rules.
On the other hand, the imposition of limits and rules is the first fundamental conflict we experience as children. If we keep this mindset all life long, we stay children regardless of age, which would be a pity. Let’s overcome that conflict together and take a step toward true freedom!
Convergent thinking is tiresome
None denies that rules, analysis, and boundaries — the convergent thinking — require energy. As with breathing, working out, winning, and any other rewarding activity, thinking to get a result implies considerable effort.
Even making love is a considerable effort, but that’s not a reason to avoid it!
Fatigue is the currency with which we pay for all achievements. And properly thinking is one of the most relevant and rewarding achievements. Imagine — if possible — you stop thinking: what’s left of you?
So, yes, convergent thinking is tiresome. But the wonderful sea of knowledge opens up if you overcome this stumbling block. And that’s the most outstanding achievement for a human.
Learning is tiresome
There’s another tiresome task that adults have imposed on us since the beginning of our lives: learning.
Again, learning is accepting rules and boundaries. Even more, education is interiorizing those rules and boundaries and understanding their profound value, which makes it acceptable a freedom reduction in exchange.
So, yes, learning is tiresome, too, like convergent thinking.
Convergent thinking is learning, and learning is freeing — really
Convergent thinking is learning — and vice versa — not just because they are both tiresome but because they open our minds to new knowledge through accepting rules and boundaries.
If you have ever experienced the pleasure of eventually shouting out: “Oh, now I understand!” you know how foundational those moments are in life. Out of the blue, light breaks through a long period of darkness: a learning period successfully ends, thinking converges, and it’s time to travel again into another darkness, something new to learn.
One month for learning to learn
I’ve spent all my life learning to learn and nurturing divergent and convergent thinking.
Convergent thinking is my preferred one, but I appreciate that it’s only one facet of the world of thought that would collapse into nothing without the divergent standpoint. For that reason, I cultivate divergent thinking, too.
I know it’s the opposite for most people: divergent thinking is the most natural since it’s easier to experience.
Following Wikipedia, divergent thinking
[…] typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, “non-linear” manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion.
The key word is ‘spontaneous’: that’s why divergent thinking sounds natural, and it’s the preferred one by most people.
On the opposite, following again Wikipedia:
Convergent thinking is the type of thinking that focuses on coming up with the single, well-established answer to a problem.
That’s why it’s not spontaneous: convergent thinking aims to reach proven results, which cannot depend on circumstances and people who thought it.
If divergent thinking is ‘spontaneous,’ convergent thinking needs education.
I’m convinced that too few people take care of convergent thinking, so I will dedicate seven articles in September 2023 to share my understanding and sensitiveness about this way of viewing the world.
Conclusion
Like day and night are the flow of time together, convergent and divergent thinking are the flow of thinking together.
As far as we can dream, we can also think in a divergent way. Nobody needs the education to learn to dream, a spontaneous movement of mind. On the other hand, convergent thinking results from education.
Follow me on the September journey across convergent thinking!
Coming soon
Stay tuned to get the first article of the Convergent Thinking series:
