Expect the Unexpected (or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus

I was first tempted to give this book only one star for disparaging the notion of "pure philosophy." But then I began to question what the purpose of philosophy was. Who has done philosophy more of a disservice, Von Oech, who sees the creative potential in Heraclitus and passes it on to willing readers, or the academics, who have purified and rarefied philosophy into something quite unrecognizable to the ancient Greeks? That was the easiest question I've had to answer in quite a while. Von Oech gets what the pointy-headed pettifoggers of academe do not: philosophy is only effective as it relates to the world. It is not a mere matter of linguistics nor an interpretation by each textual reader, but rather a force guiding humans towards creativity through its answers to our everyday questions. There was a time in the past when philosophers wrote for the educated public. Nowadays, philosophers write for other philosophers, substituting rhetoric and wordplay for creativity. The loser is our culture, which depends upon philosophy as a lynchpin. Von Oech's fascination with Heraclitus goes back to 1971 while studying in Germany. Picking up a book of Heraclitus' epigrams, Von Oech became instantly hooked when he read "the way up and the way down are one and the same." He writes that this caused him to spend the next several weeks trying to figure out its meaning. Since then, he says, he's wanted to put out a "creativity tool" based on the works of Heraclitus.And what a creativity tool he has created. His grasp of Heraclitus is firm and, moreover, he is able to apply each epigram he examines to the problems of thinking and creativity in the workplace. The reader will also notice a warmth coming through: a deep love of the subject and philosophy in general, something we do not always get from our academics, as anyone who had to sit through Philosophy 101 with a boring pedant will tell you. And Von Oech will succeed in doing what our friends in the ivory tower have failed to do, and that is to instill a love of wisdom in the heads of his students. For that, Roger von Oech, I salute you.

"Expect the Unexpected or You Won't Find It" is a collection of thirty of Heraclitus' epigrams along with an examination of some of their different facets. Heraclitus was a Greek scholar who answered many of life's questions with comments that were purposely designed to be obscure. This forced the recipient to think creatively to find their answer. Many of them contain internal paradoxes and so part of the creative process is figuring out the paradox and how it applies to your situation.As Roger von Oech goes through each of the thirty selected epigrams he includes some of the ways that they can be interpreted, ways that they have been interpreted in the past, anecdotes, jokes, and riddles that illustrate the epigram and other ways of illuminating just how deep these pieces of wisdom are. Does he give a complete explanation of how they can be interpreted? No, because that is part of the design of these epigrams, they can be applied to different circumstances and product different but still correct answers. His illustrations are there to open your mind to the creative possibilities that lie hidden within just a few wise words.Some of these I have heard in the past such as "You can't step into the same river twice". Others are less common but just as full of wisdom such as "On a circle, an end point can also be a beginning point". If you want a book that expands your creative mind and also shows you how to break out of old patterns of thinking in any situation, then this is the book for you. Well written and sure to point the reader to new directions of thinking, it is a highly recommended read.

This gem of a book is shy 200 pages and is set in four sections beginning with Stir Your Mind with Heraclitus, then The Creative Insights of Heraclitus, Final Thoughts and Answers to Puzzles. It's nice that on page 5 the author tells the reader who are unfamiliar with this Greek sage, who he was and when he lived. 500 BCE. "This means that he was an almost exact contemporary of the Chinese thinkers Lao-tzu and Confucious, the Indian contemplative Siddhartha Gautama (the historical Buddha) and was only a little younger than the Persian prophet Zarathustra."On page 12 and 12 the author lists thirty epigrams which he believes best express Heraclitus' philosophy of the creative spirit. And being a mathematical and puzzle solving family we were intrigued with the puzzles of life that the author discusses. I think great thinkers love math and life puzzles.As an example the letters of the alphabet can be grouped into four different categories (1)A,M (2) B,C,D,E,K;(3)F,G,J,K,L; and (4) H,I. Figure out the pattern and place the remaining 13 letters in their appropriate categories.Or how about Find what the following words have in common: laughing, starburst, calmness, crabcake, stuffed, canopy, hijack.Now the book is much more than mind games. It is after all about thinking outside the box, or simply thinking, which sadly many people are afraid to do. The author like his subject knows the value of straining ones brain. Asking questions and looking for more than one answer. Dissecting life's challenges and seeing each lesson as the next step to the next lesson and in the end wisdom.The author realizes that digging deeper for questions and answers produced gems of wisdom and solutions and that we simply need to be open to the possibilities. Optimistic rather than pessimistic. This is a book that men as well as women will savor. And one both my husband and I find ourselves opening and re-reading and realizing that new lessons and gems of wisdom are there no matter how often we re-read the book.And if you end up with a headache when reading this book it is my opinion that your brain has had a good workout.

The fact that von Oech draws heavily upon the "ancient wisdom of Heraclitus" in this book correctly suggests what a creative mind such as von Oech's can accomplish when seeing direct and useful correlations between an ancient Greek philosopher (other than Plato and Aristotle) and intellectual challenges in the 21st century. Von Oech describes Heraclitus as "the world's first creative teacher." He recalls being "infected" (happily) with the Heraclitean "bug" while studying in Germany 30 years ago. Now von Oech has written a book in which he brilliantly and entertainingly examines concepts such as symbol, paradox, and ambiguity in relation to creative thought. He offers 30 "Creative Insights" of Heraclitus which include, for example, these five:#2. "Expect the unexpected or you won't find it."#4 "You can't step into the same river twice."#12 "Many fail to grasp what's right in the palm of their hand."#26 "Donkeys prefer garbage to gold."#29 "Your character is your destiny."Individually and even when clustered with the other 25, these "Creative Insights" may seem unworthy of careful consideration. In fact, von Oech provides a brief but insightful analysis of each which effectively demonstrates the wisdom of #12. Truly creative thinkers are always alert to what I call "the invisibility of the obvious." They are not threatened by or even uncomfortable with symbol, paradox, and ambiguity. On the contrary, their minds are stimulated by them. Throughout his book, von Oech inserts a number of brief puzzles for the reader to solve. (The correct answers are included and explained within the "Final Thoughts" section.) These puzzles are fun to grapple with, of course, and presumably most readers will solve them of them. My point is, the answers to the unsolved puzzles are no less obvious than the answers to the others, no matter which specific puzzles the reader is unable to solve.Frankly, when I began to read this book, I really did not know what to expect. What of value could I possibly learn from a relatively obscure Greek philosopher? However, von Oech had already convinced me of the value of an occasional "whack on the side of the head" and "kick in the seat of the pants" so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. (See #12.) As always, von Oech is immensely entertaining. He has superb writing skills. And of course, he is an immensely creative thinker in his own right. I strongly recommend this little (in length) book to literally anyone who wants to put white caps on her or his gray matter. Those who share my high regard for this book are strongly urged to read all of von Oech's previous books as well as those written by Guy Claxton, Edward de Bono, Lynne Levesque, and Michael Michalko.

I have long been a fan of Roger von Oech's work on creativity (see A Whack on the Side of the Head and the Creative Whack Pack card deck). I found this book to be a pleasant and valuable addition to my resources for stimulating my thinking in new ways.The book's core are 30 epigrams ("a terse, witty, and often paradoxical saying") of the 125 that have come down to us in the quotations of other authors from Heraclitus, as written 2500 years ago. Mr. von Oech has taken the traditional translation and updated it into more conceptual English in many cases, which makes the material more accessible. "All things happen according to the logos" (from Heraclitus by T. M. Robinson, University of Toronto Press, 1987) becomes "The cosmos speaks in patterns." Each epigram begins with an imaginative line drawing to give you an initial impression of the concept. Mr. von Oech goes on to provide some key subpoints in a brief essay, some examples of the concepts and subpoints in action, and occasionally gives you puzzles and brain teasers to play with (the answers are at the end of the book).The longer the section, the better I liked it. So I left the book wishing it had been longer. That's my usual test of how helpful a book was to me. While many of these epigrams meant nothing to me on first reading them, Mr. von Oech's explanations soon made each an old and valuable friend.Mr. von Oech suggests three ways to use the book. First, you can read it from start to finish as a creativity workbook. Second, you can take one epigram a day and make it the focus of a meditation for that day. You can repeat the list at the end of 30 days ("You can't step into the same river twice" so you should get new insights each time). Third, you can use the book as an oracle. When you have a question, randomly pick an epigram (there's a random number table in the book to help you do this) and apply it to the problem. I would like to suggest a fourth application, as well. You could use the epigrams to stimulate group creativity in problem-solving situations involving others.Space does not permit (nor would fairness allow) publishing all the epigrams here, but let me share the ones that had the most impact on me."That which opposes produces a benefit.""A wonderful harmony is created when you join together the seemingly unconnected.""I searched into myself.""Many fail to grasp what's right in the palm of the hand.""Things love to conceal their true nature.""Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings.""Sea water is both pure and polluted: for fish it's drinkable and life-giving; for humans undrinkable and destructive.""It is disease that makes health pleasant, hunger that makes fullness good, and weariness that makes rest sweet.""The way up and the way down are one and the same.""A thing rests by changing.""Donkeys prefer garbage to gold.""Every walking animal is driven to its purpose with a whack.""Your character is your desti