Category: Albert O. Hirschman

Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened… Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be… We are apparently on the trail here of some sort of invisible or hidden hand that beneficially hides difficulties from us.

Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened… Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be… We are apparently on the trail here of some sort of invisible or hidden hand that beneficially hides difficulties from us.