I am confused about which offer to accept.
I am going in circles trying to figure out what is the best option I have among many of them.
I cannot make head or tail of this problem. How could I solve it?
I am confused about the intentions of my friend.
The above are daily examples of the confusion state we encounter. With the ever-increasing options available, our confusion is increasing.
The Intention of Confusion
Confusing people may be intentional or not. The common saying if you want to beat them confuse them is a clear example of intentional confusion.
One known way of confusing people is repeating a fake story several times at different times. The listeners may get in a state of confusion by tending to believe in the fake story.
The source of confusion can be external or internal.
External confusion such as I cannot understand why professionals cheat.
Banks confuse customers with many choices.
Our VUCA world is a major source leaving us unsure and confused about what to do.
Surprisingly, we too tend to confuse ourselves. We are the source of our confusion. This is a topic of special interest. One major form of self-inflicted confusion is memories. We fail to tell if our memories are indeed ours or if we heard about them from others. The validity of memory becomes our own source of confusion.
Confusion can be a Source of Creativity
Our world is constantly keeping us in a state of confusion. The tension of confusion might be the source for creative thinking for the brave hearts.
To be confused is not a comfort and human seek to stay in their comfort zone. This is the drive for turning the energy of confusion into restructuring our thinking to higher levels. We tend to ask more questions that breed more questions. The confusion increasing and might take us to the point of no return. Here is our opportunity to restructure our thinking instead of immersing into deep chaos.
This is only possible if we accept confusion by asking questions, exploring possibilities, trying, failing, and unlearning to learn new skills.
My biggest achievements resulted from my state of being in confusion undecided and not understanding what is going on why women only bought a strawberry-flavored soft drink during winter and not summer.
This led me to learn more about data mining, which later figure out the fog of my confusion. It was because women bought the soft drink as a substitute for the unaffordable cosmetics. They bought during winter to attract men at high schools and universities.
I have many examples of other stories in which confusion ignited my journey of discovery. Please share one of your stories.
I believe that wherever there’s chaos (and confussion), there’s a creative spark waiting to be lit up. The non-essential things in life push themselves unto us, with the main purpose of creating confusion. Why? In my opinion, so that we may wake up of being on the usual “autopilot” state that most of us humans, live in. If you think about it, the essential things in life, are usually confusion free. If you love, you love. If you want something, and are able to really understand what, you go for it. If you are curious, you seek, and so on. There’s little confusion in thruth, but the journey involves finding that thruth…which is confusing!!! (like this comment of mine!) 🙂
Again, I am beildered by the beauty of your comment my friend Leticia.
You ssummarized the main idea of the post elegantly. “Why? In my opinion, so that we may wake up of being on the usual “autopilot” state that most of us humans live in.”.
If I am confused about your comment in any way is that because of its high caliber.
Keep confusing me, please.
Wow that’s great !!
Personally I do not have great knowledge about it even if it happened to me some times to meet people who also lived professionally in a way that for me was absolutely chaotic and, however, they got along very well in that chaos.
I have also read somewhere that creative people have a chaotic mind due to the large amount of imagination they possess. In short, if you have a lot of confusion in your head you are a creative person. Science says it!
However, I am convinced that constantly asking questions, intellectual curiosity guide the creative in exploring the world.
Having so many doubts is therefore a symptom of open-mindedness and promotes creativity. Creative people are in a position of constant observation of the world.
This topic is interesting. I’ll try to understand more!
Very interesting comment, Aldo.
Science has also proven the value of tension creativity. If confusion creates enough tension we feel very imbalanced and this puts us on the edge of confusion-chaos zone. With enough observation, imagination and experimenting a step at a time we may turn our tension energy to creative solutions.
This does not mean intellectuals are less creative. But my feelings is that they too get confused with contradicting findings or unexplained results. They face confusion sometimes. Being intellectuals they ask the right questions and seek a resolution to their curious confusion.
Again, I truly admire your valuable comment.
Thank you.Your observations are always illuminating.
Brother Ali
At my advanced age, I am easily confused. I’m not sure if that makes me more creative, but sure, I’ll take that.
I sometime conflate something I heard or watched on TV with something I experienced. Recently I realized that the years I attended the Newport Folk Festival, 1964 and 1965 were different than the year that Tm Ashley performed.
(1963). I’ve been quoting somethig Asley said for years saying I was in the audience. Turns out I own the record of that performance, but I wasn’t there.
Now I wrote that down in a LinkedIn post laughing at myself -perhaps that counts as creativity from confusion.
If I think of creative acts I am pround of – some woodcarving pieces – a cigar box guitar -some particular writing pieces – they are often not my first pieces -when I am discovering my way learning everything for the first time. They are a bit later, when I think I know what I am doing -but come up against greater than anticipated challenges -the struggle -confused about what I’m really trying to do -confused about how to get there -sometimes the struggle goes on for a long time -with many false starts -stops and restarts.
Is it the confussion or the struggle -or the – aha / perceived solution -that makes me proud of the result. Or all of that?
I don’t know. Am I confused? Will this spark more creativity? Ooooo – I can’t wait to find out. Thank you for another adventure.
I’ve been quoting somethig Ashley said for years saying I was in the audience. Turns out I own the record of that performance, but I wasn’t there. WOW!Thank you for sharing a great example of memory confusion, which I discussed in a greater detail in the full post brother Alan Culler
I mentioned what is in line with your comment that for tension to be creative it has to take the confused beyond their point of return and to a tipping point on the edge separating confusin and creativity.
Those people who can be persistent in such conditions are the ones who shall turn the energy of confusion into creative ideas that opens new doors for them.
I am sure brother that you are creative and confusion shall be one way to greater creative ideas from you.