Creativity is the process of making a huge number of seemingly trivial decisions, all of which add up to something non-trivial in nature.
A painting for example starts as a blank canvas, then decisions are made about:
- The color palette
- The background color(s)
- The subjects of the painting and where to put them
- The brushstrokes to use to get the proper texture effects
- The blending techniques
- When to stop
All in all, if someone is making a painting from scratch, they are making thousands of small decisions, each one itself likely having a minor impact, but all taken together, they are responsible for the significance of the entire project.
I’ve written about decision-making before, it’s a critical concept for anyone to understand in their life. You can read some of them here:
- Analysis, Decision-Making and Commitment
- Probabilities-based Decision-Making
- Making bad decisions anonymously
- Decisions originate as emotions
- Rational vs. Emotional Decisions
- Warner Bros. AI for film decisions
- Great work starts with decision-making