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Many thinkers have explored the relationship between creativity and
limitations in some depth. In general, the literature continues to argue for
the value of constraints in encouraging creativity, in the arts, business, and
life. Patricia Stokes (2005) says:
I like to think of constraints for creativity as
barriers that lead to break-
throughs
. One constraint
precludes
(or limits search among) low-variability,
tried-and-true responses. It acts as a barrier which allows the other con-
straints to
promote
(or direct search among) high-variability, novel re-
sponses that could prove to be breakthroughs.
In his classic book
The Courage to Create
(1975), psychologist Rollo May
asserted the need for limitations in creative activities:
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations,
the latter (like river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms
that are essential to the work of art. . . . The signifi cance of limits in art is
seen most clearly when we consider the question of form. Form provides
the essential boundaries and structure for the creative act.
A system in which people are encouraged to do whatever they want
will probably not produce pleasant experiences. When a person is asked
to “be creative” with no direction or constraints whatsoever, the result is,
according to May, often a sense of powerlessness or even complete paraly-
sis of the imagination. Limitations—constraints that focus creative efforts—
paradoxically increase one's imaginative power by reducing the number of
open possibilities. Limitations, May says, provide the security net that en-
ables a person to take imaginative leaps:
Imagination is casting off mooring ropes, taking one's chances that there
will be new mooring posts in the vastness ahead. . . . How far can we let
our imagination loose? . . . Will we lose the boundaries that enable us
to orient ourselves to what we call reality? This again is the problem of
form, or stated differently, the awareness of limits.
The nature of a mimetic world provides a similar security net. Gen-
erally speaking, people know that things work better when they respect
the limits of a mimetic world as indicated by its structure and affordances
as well as the model of it that people are building through experience. In
