Creativity : Taboos

A taboo is an inhibition resulting from social customs or emotional aversion. Taboos serve a useful purpose to society because they prevent people from getting into uncomfortable situations. However, taboos can cause people to ignore certain solutions to problems, even if these solutions are very good.

A popular example is to imagine a pipe stuck in the ground with a ping-pong ball in the bottom. How do you get the ping-pong ball out using a minimum of supplies and without damaging anything? The taboo answer is to pee into the pipe, thus floating the ball out. This is a very effective solution and you may have thought of this answer, but if you had been in a group of people, you probably would not have verbalized it.

Since taboos exist to protect other members of society, you do not need to censor yourself when you are working alone. You might not end up with a taboo solution, but sometimes you must think through incorrect or unacceptable solutions in order to reach a correct one.

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Creativity : Taboos

A taboo is an inhibition resulting from social customs or emotional aversion. Taboos serve a useful purpose to society because they prevent people from getting into uncomfortable situations. However, taboos can cause people to ignore certain solutions to problems, even if these solutions are very good.

A popular example is to imagine a pipe stuck in the ground with a ping-pong ball in the bottom. How do you get the ping-pong ball out using a minimum of supplies and without damaging anything? The taboo answer is to pee into the pipe, thus floating the ball out. This is a very effective solution and you may have thought of this answer, but if you had been in a group of people, you probably would not have verbalized it.

Since taboos exist to protect other members of society, you do not need to censor yourself when you are working alone. You might not end up with a taboo solution, but sometimes you must think through incorrect or unacceptable solutions in order to reach a correct one.

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Memory : Effective Associations : Craziness

Many mnemonics rely on making visual associations in your mind. The nature of these visualizations has a lot to do with how well you will remember them.

Making crazy associations in your visualizations will help you remember the information later. If you are trying to associate a dog with a stapler, a poor association would be a dog standing on a stapler. The brain filters out and forgets things that are ordinary. If you get a little crazy, you’ll have a more memorable association. Maybe you could picture a dog with a stapler for a mouth! In addition to making the images more interesting, crazy associations tend to take more time to form and thus give you a better chance at getting them into your long-term memory.

Here are two techniques that will help make your associations crazier.

1. Try a substitution. For example, substituting a stapler for a dog’s mouth.

2. Try an exaggeration. For example, a giant stapler chasing a scared dog down the street.

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Historical Events for 18th November 2015

1667 – Treaty of Bongaja: King Hassan-Udin of Makasar and VOC
1738 – France and Austria sign peace
1755 – Worst quake in Mass Bay area strikes Boston; no deaths report
1912 – Cholera breaks out in Constantinople, in the Ottoman Empire
1929 – Large earthquake in Atlantic breaks transatlantic cable in 28 places
1929 – Dr Vladimir K Zworykin demonstrates “kinescope”
1961 – “Kwamina” closes at 54th St Theater NYC after 32 performances
1966 – US RC bishops ends rules against eating meat on Fridays
1970 – Johnny Bench wins NL MVP
1982 – Mariasela Alvarez of Dominican Republic, crowned 32nd Miss World

More Historical Events »

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