FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: OBJECT ANALOGY

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Purpose:

To instantly stimulate your senses with random objects that can be linked to any problem. The answers, limitless in quantity, change dramatically, from obscurity to the wonderfully obvious... from this quantity, we get quality.

"In finding resemblances between remote objects or ideas, metaphorical-analogical thinking opens new pathways of thought and thus of creative problem solving ... If the unlike things are really alike in some ways, perhaps they are so in others; that is the meaning of analogy. We pursue the thought, and find new meanings, new understanding, and often, new solutions to old problems."

– Morton Hunt, 'The Universe Within', 1982

Generating Ideas via Object Analogy

The procedure is straightforward, and great fun:

1 Select any object. Use it to address a specific challenge. Do not worry about it being the right or wrong object. Everything connects to everything else, and whatever you choose is fine. Please allow your intuition to come into play; it is a significant part of the intellect.

2 Look closely at the selected object. Scrutinise it and then identify its various attributes.

3 Allow the attributes (features, characteristics, qualities) to trigger associations in your mind.

Try not to just be literal; play with the words, their sounds, colours, meanings and nuances, forms and functions, contents and contexts, and you will be able to realise an unending stream of analogies.

I have selected a vehicle for this exercise. It could just as easily have been any other object. You can also use the same object and peg it to another challenge. The system never fails.
Do not worry about speed; it will come as you get used to seeing.

This is a thinking process, and will trigger your powers of recall, as well as your ability to generate creative connections.

Now look closely at the object below and use it’s attributes to address the challenge that is appended to it.

Your Challenge: In what ways can I enhance my expertise in creativity?

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]