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Linda Smarzik has taught visual design and problem solving with a local community college in Austin, Texas for over two decades. During the first decade, questions concerning creativity began to surface as she noticed differences amongst her students' creative abilities. "What process allows some students to access creativity more easily than others?" and "How can individuals more readily tap into the creative process to complete a project or goal?"
In 1999, during a trek in the Nepal Himalayas, long sought-after answers began to unfold. On the second evening of her journey, she experienced such intense altitude sickness that she was told to immediately return down the mountain to the next lodge, two hours away. There was little light left in the evening sky as she and her guide, Dawa, began slipping and stumbling back down the mountain on a crumbling, rocky trail. Yet, during that dangerous Himalayan descent, something amazing happened.
Exactly what transpired on that Himalayan mountain range has taken years to sort out. Linda realized that what had happened during her descent was no different from the experience of a painter effortlessly surrendering to the next paint stroke or a writer letting her fingers fly across a keyboard. Furthermore, she realized this process of creativity or effortlessness does not pertain just to "creative" individuals. Rather, everyone has the ability to tap into their own effortlessness, their own unique process of creativity.
Reviewed by Teodora Totorean for Readers' Favorite
Did you know that you have the ability to access and apply your creativity to all areas of your life without necessarily coming from a so called creative field? In her book “The Mind of Thuse! Thriving within Effortlessness”, Linda Smarzik explains how creativity can be successfully applied on a daily basis for problem solving and for reaching a joyful and effortless state of mind. The premise of her theory is that we have all experienced a high degree of enthusiasm and spent hours doing something that we enjoyed, be that baking, fixing a car or writing a children’s story. By accessing this state of mind, we can then apply it to the areas we struggle in. Instead of procrastinating a daunting activity, we can enter in this realm of creativeness to accomplish something that we weren't even aware we could. In proving her theory, apart from her personal story, Linda Smarzik comes with examples from quantum physics, string theory, eastern philosophy and concepts from Hinduism all combined with explanations on how the brain works as well as the distinction between brain and mind.
The book was challenging to read at times because of the science behind the narrative. However, all the scientific data and philosophical viewpoints are necessary to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on in the reactive brain and how those theories can explain some elusive concepts such as intuition, miracles and coincidence. The real life examples and case studies of people who struggled but then managed to find a solution are offering a complete picture of the theory so that we can all apply it to our own lives and reach the effortlessness by accessing the mind of Thuse.
