Creativity, like society, thrives when the individual elements fit within, and add to, a bigger picture. - Will Gompertz

If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try exactly the same thing again. You won’t succeed, again. Instead, have a think, evaluate, correct, modify and then try again. Creativity is an iterative process.

She pointed up to a shelf of plates stacked vertically in a rack above the sink. “Choose one,” she said. I must have looked nonplussed. “Choose a plate,” she repeated. And then explained that she collects plates, but only ever one of any type. It was up to the guest to decide which one would be theirs for the duration of the stay. “We’re not robots,” she said. “Life is more exciting when you have an opinion.”

It is, after all, our imagination that makes us human. Vincent van Gogh asked, “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” To which the answer is, I would have thought, boring, bordering on pointless.