Leonardo da Vinci’s Seven Principles (Part 1)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Leonardo da Vinci,
when observing himself and other creative people, came up with seven principles
for a creative life They are:
1. Curiosity.
2. Demonstration: A commitment to test knowledge through experience.
3. Sensation: Continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, to enliven
experiences. (also to challenge what you’re seeing)
4. Sfumato: (literally, “going up in smoke”) a willingness to
embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty, to see cherished ideas and preconceived
notions going “up in smoke.”
5. Art/Science: Development of a balance between science and art, logic
and imagination (whole-brain thinking)
6. Corporalite: The cultivation
of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.
7. Connessione: Recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness
of all things and phenomena. (Systems thinking.)
Further detailed explanations follow:
First Principle: Curiosity. Examples of this principle are illustrated by
taking this and other classes, reading, and a quest for learning. Finding
the right question. “How do we get to water?” vs. “How
can we get the water to come to us?” Find your weaknesses and blind
spots. What are your strengths? “What can I do to be more effective.”
Avoid self serving-ism. If you’re too abrupt with someone, don’t
justify it. Take hard looks at yourself. Where are you inflexible, unyielding.
What do you hold true without challenge?…Patriotism? Religious beliefs?
Any Truth is equal to the challenge, to our curiosity, and da Vinci felt
it an obligation to the Creator to partake not blindly of his Creation,
but to explore it fully and deeply so to better appreciate it and our place
in it.
Second Principle: Dimostazione. (Demonstration) da Vinci insisted on questioning
conventional thinking. Thinking for yourself, trying it out through experience,
was essential to fully understanding and fully appreciating nature (God).
When he wanted to learn, he took it into his own hands. Probably the biggest
single falling down of creativity is to rely on others for “expert”
opinion or information. We are lead into all kinds of “creativity
sins” when we unquestioningly partake. A story found in a recent news
item told of a woman who wrung her hands at the plumber’s report and
estimate until her six year old daughter simply asked, “Why can’t
he just do something else?” A “something else” was possible,
but she hadn’t thought to ask and the plumber hadn’t thought
she’d be interested.
Pick something to learn, and challenge it. Find something you’re dissatisfied
with. Challenge it. Think about the problem and try something new. Boss
you don’t like. Smile and ask him to lunch. Hate that crabgrass….start
reading about weeds. Don’t ask the local guy at the store, read about
it yourself. Soon you’ll be an expert and much happier with your yard.
Relationships. What’s wrong? What don’t you like? What do you
like? How can you change to make it better? (Not the other person…creativity
is about you seeing things differently.) What emotions or beliefs instantly
rise to make you feel “right” or the other person “wrong?”
What makes you think you can or can’t change? Challenge yourself,
explore. Don’t settle for “because” or “that’s
the way I was raised” or “I’m uncomfortable with that.”
Why are you uncomfortable? If you can’t ask these questions of yourself
you’ll never be able to ask them of someone else.
Religion comes into play here as a defining example. Many will say they
have a fixed, certain belief, “I love God. I accept Christ as my Savior.
I strive to be more Spiritual.” Yet what do you do about it? How,
specifically do you put religion into action? Most find, that aside from
mentally setting themselves apart, they don’t actually change beyond
arriving at a certain smug satisfaction that they actually believe something.
Third Principle: Sensazione (Sensation). Picture a time, hopefully recently,
when you felt vibrant, alert and vital. Chances are your senses were heightened
by a new, and possibly unusual, or highly anticipated experience. Leonardo
practiced cultivation of this experience constantly, so that he lived in
a perpetual state of high alertness and sensitivity. Think of a trip to
an unfamiliar place, or take an unfamiliar route, and observe everything
new. Put yourself into unexpected or unanticipated situations on purpose.
Take a left where you would turn right. Throw back the usual brand of peanut
butter and grab the most unfamiliar jar on the shelf. Put yourself into
situations where you have no previous connotations or connections. Challenge
yourself to see familiar routines without prejudice as though seeing it
for the first time. The average person, “looks, without seeing, listens
without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without
physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour of fragrance, and
talks without thinking.” (Leonardo). Take taste as an example. Slow
down. Chew slowly as you eat. Become aware of how little you are aware.
Discover where your appreciation, your attention lies. Show your appreciation.
Move it into other areas.
For instance, your work environment. Is it sterile? Do you even notice?
Do you notice the effect it has on you? What stimulates you? Learning effectiveness
and efficiencies are at once relaxing but mentally stimulating. Pop, rap,
heavy metal and the like actually distract and destroy concentration. Perhaps
silence while you create is best.
Continued in part 2. Click here.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s biography is fascinating: Art, Painting, last supper, drawing, mona lisa, invention. The book how to think like Leonardo da vinci provides some interesting clues, a notebook and a short sketch picture of this fascinating man.