Akiva Goldsman on the Creative Process | Breakthrough

I think the creative process is actually very similar whether it be math, science, music, or art. I'm more familiar with the dredging of the ether for a sentence or two, and I like it, but it is an act of sheer faith. It is an act of propulsion into some version of the void, which is what all the folks who have been working to change the way we utilize our resources are doing as well. They face a problem that doesn't have a simple presenting solution, and then what one does is one sort of rolls oneself at it.

I am the least athletic person known to man, but I was once forced to go rock climbing. I started rock climbing, and I gotta get up to the ways up, and I stopped because there was nothing to do. There were no more handholds; there were no more footholds. I say this as an empirical truth, and the person who is teaching me to rock climb said, "Just stand there."

I said, "Well, what good pulled that?" And he said, "Just stand there." And I did, and suddenly there were handholds and footholds. I don't understand why or how, but I know that's an empirical truth: fundamentally, if you face the problem, a solution will present itself.

I think that is creativity: the impossible transmutation of nowhere to grab on to, to somewhere to grab on. I don't think that's different whether it's a musical note, a sentence, or a strategy to turn something solid into something magic or love for them.