How to Think (and Write) Like Leonardo da Vinci, Part I: Curiosità
Photo by Hasse Lossius on Unsplash
Like many people, I’ve long been fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci. His insatiable curiosity, passion, creativity, experimentation, and the incredible art he’s left us all speak to his genius in a wide array of endeavors. If you haven’t read Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography, Leonardo da Vinci, I highly recommend it.
Michael J. Gelb’s How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, is a mini-biography and workbook, outlining seven steps he sees as the key to da Vinci’s creativity:
Curiosità
Dimostrazione
Sensazione
Sfumato
Arte/Scienza
Corporalità
Connessione
I’m going to try something a little different from the usual posts. Over the next 7 weeks, I’ll go through these one by one, focusing on the lessons writers can learn from these principles. If you want to get the book and follow along, great! Each chapter has a wealth of exercises you can do to increase your experience of the principle in action. I’ll mention a few of them as I go.
You don’t have to know anything about da Vinci to appreciate the seven principles and how they enhance creativity. A good dose of Principle #1, Curiosità, is all you need.
Curiosità, or curiosity, is the foundation of all creative work. It asks, what if… and leads us onward from there. Gelb defines Curiosità as “An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.”
As children, we’re full of questions. Everything is new, and we have a burning desire to figure it all out. By the time we’re adults, it’s easy to lose our sense of curiosity. For most of us, school focuses on memorizing facts and coming up with the right answer, rather than working with a child’s natural curiosity and desire to learn. We’re lucky if, by the time we graduate, we retain any desire to keep learning anything at all. Or if we do, it might be out of a sense that it will be good for our career, not out of our own passionate desire to follow our curiosity.
Maintaining a sense of curiosity is crucial for a writer, though. Writers are intensely curious about what makes people tick. We have to be, to come up with characters that are lifelike and intriguing. Depending on what we’re writing, we have to become curious about places, historical eras, even how murders are committed (and solved).
And of course, we have to be curious about the craft and process of writing itself. How do we create a good story? How do we show what characters are feeling, rather than simply telling the reader? How do we write a compelling opening? How do we prevent the middle from sagging? How do we write a satisfying climax and ending? And that’s just the big-picture stuff, not even, “how do we make beautiful sentences”?
The more curious you are, the more stories you see around you to tell. If you’re feeling blah, not excited about any story prospect, then you need to get curious. If you’re stuck in the middle of a story and don’t know what should happen next, get curious.
What are some ways to get curious right now?
Keep a writing notebook. If nothing pops into your mind that you have questions about, then you’re simply not paying attention. Get in the habit of looking around you, and asking questions about what you see and hear. Use your phone if you must, but a real notebook and pen will connect your brain to the stimulus much better. You might feel silly at first, but once you’re in the habit, you’ll find that you have lots of questions. They could be about something in the natural world. Or something you overhear in a coffee shop. Or something you see on Instagram that you’d like to know more about. Or just something you’ve always wondered about but never taken the time to explore.
In your notebook, you can jot down questions, snatches of conversation or description, story ideas - anything you want to remember. Challenge yourself to write 10 questions per day. The first ones will be awkward or obvious, but once you move past them you may find yourself intrigued by something deeper. The practice of pushing past the obvious is beneficial in itself.
And an even more fun exercise is to answer the questions with whatever comes to mind. No matter how outrageous or silly, jot down what you think the answer is. That is creativity in action.
Other powerful questions you may want to ask, and then freewrite answers to:
What am I most passionate about?
What have I always wanted to do or learn?
What am I most afraid of?
What do I truly, deeply, believe?
If I had 10 million dollars, I would…
What do I really want to write about, if I have the courage?
I believe writing is…
I believe books are…
If I could travel to (place), I would…
If I could travel to (time), I would…
What would I do if I weren’t afraid to fail?
You get the idea. Think of some of your own questions, and go from there!
2. Ask yourself what you have always wanted to learn, or learn more about. Ancient Roman history? The life of Chopin? How to throw pottery? How to bake bread? What really happened at the Alamo? What is it like to go into outer space? You might start by making a list of things you’d like to learn about, or learn how to do. Then pick one, and do it! Record what you’ve learned in your journal. Does it inspire a story?
3. Artistic storytelling: go to a museum, or if you can’t get to one in person, visit a museum website. Are you curious about any of the art, especially pieces you haven’t seen much of in the past? If you’re in love with the Impressionists, go check out the art of ancient Egypt, or Chinese porcelain, or African masks, or maps, or fiber art, or photography.
Choose one particular piece that speaks to you. What story does it tell?
Who do you think the artist is? What are (or were) they like?
4. Embrace the idea of lifelong learning. Not as a chore, but as a delight. Even if what you learn doesn’t directly inspire stories, the act of learning - of being curious - will “prime the pump.”
5. Test your daily routine: mix things up, do things differently, or in a different order. This is where doing regular Artist Dates can also shake up your everyday life and allow you to experiment. One reason travel is so good for our brains is that it forces the brain to create new neural pathways to deal with all the new stimuli. We are naturally curious when we travel: how do the locals do this? What do they do it that way? We can bring some of this curiosity to our everyday lives by asking ourselves why we’ve always done something a certain way.
6. Learn a new language - or learn new words in your native language. When you learn a new language, you learn about a whole new way of thinking about and organizing the world. You learn terms for concepts you never thought of before. You don’t need to aim for fluency. Even an app like Duolingo will give you an easy introduction to a language.
You can also expand your vocabulary in your own language, through using a word-a-day app. You never know what gems you might pick up - and as writers, we live by our words!
7. Get curious about yourself. What are your strengths as a writer? What are the things you need to work on? These could be craft elements, or things like better time management. How could you learn what you need to learn? One of the best questions you can ask in your notebook is, “What do I need to know (or do) right now?”
Curiosità is about waking up to your life, right here, right now. What are you missing? What questions could you ask to get unstuck, or find wonder?
Don’t forget to spend time in silence, listening for the answers. You can also freewrite them 🥽in your notebook.
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