Curiosity. Creative people want to know things--all kinds of things-- just to know them. Knowledge does not require a reason. The question, "Why do you want to know that?" seems strange to the creative person, who is likely to respond, "Because I don't know the answer." Knowledge is enjoyable and often useful in strange and unexpected ways.
For example, I was once attempting to repair something, without apparent success, when an onlooker asked testily, "Do you know what you're doing?" I replied calmly, "No, that's why I'm doing it."
Challenge. Curious people like to identify and challenge the assumptions behind ideas, proposals, problems, beliefs, and statements. Many assumptions, of course, turn out to be quite necessary and solid, but many others have been assumed unnecessarily, and in breaking out of those assumptions often comes a new idea, a new path, a new solution.
For example, when we think of a college, we traditionally think of a physical campus with classrooms, a library, and some nice trees. But why must college be a place (with congregated students and faculty) at all? Thus, the electronic college now exists, where students "go" to college right at home, online. Correspondence courses have existed for years, too, beginning with the challenging of the school-as-centralized-place idea.
Constructive discontent. This is not a whining, griping kind of discontent, but the ability to see a need for improvement and to propose a method of making that improvement. Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent, reflecting the thought, "Hey, I know a way to make that better."
Constructive discontent is necessary for a creative problem solver, for if you are happy with everything the way it is, you won't want to change anything. Only when you become discontent with something, when you see a problem, will you want to solve the problem and improve the situation.
A belief that most problems can be solved. By faith at first and by experience later on, the creative thinker believes that something can always be done to eliminate or help alleviate almost every problem. Problems are solved by a commit-ment of time and energy, and where this commitment is present, few things are impossible.
The belief in the solvability of problems is especially useful early on in attacking any problem, because many problems at first seem utterly impossible and scare off the fainter hearted. Those who take on the problem with confidence will be the ones most likely to think through or around the impossibility of the problem.
The ability to suspend judgment and criticism. Many new ideas, because they are new and unfamiliar, seem strange, odd, bizarre, even repulsive. Only later do they become "obviously" great. Other ideas, in their original incarnations, are indeed weird, but they lead to practical, beautiful, elegant things. Thus, it is important for the creative thinker to be able to sus-pend judgment when new ideas are arriving, to have an optimistic attitude toward ideas in general, and to avoid con-demning them with the typical kinds of negative responses like, "That will never work; that's no good; what an idiotic idea; that's impossible," and so forth.
Proverb: "A crank is a genius whose idea hasn't yet caught on."
Seeing the good in the bad. Creative thinkers, when faced with poor solu-tions, don't cast them away. Instead, they ask, "What's good about it?" because there may be something useful even in the worst ideas. And however little that good may be, it might be turned to good effect or made greater.
Problems lead to improvements. The attitude of constructive discontent searches for problems and possible areas of improvement, but many times problems arrive on their own. But such unexpected and perhaps unwanted problems are not necessarily bad, because they often permit solutions that leave the world better than before the problem arose.
A problem can also be a solution. A fact that one person describes as a problem can sometimes be a solution for someone else. Above we not-ed that creative thinkers can find good ideas in bad solutions. Creative thinkers also look at problems and ask, "Is there something good about this problem?"