New magazine for and about your Mind

Over the weekend I stumbled onto a magazine from last year in the reading pile at my office. I always find great stuff buried there but I didn't even know that this magazine existed. I wanted to mention it here as a resource. It's Scientific American Mind. Every article in this issue from April 2005 was intriguing to me, the science/wellness nerd, but especially the article on creativity. Here's an excerpt for you and a link to the magazine to read the rest of the 4 page article. Go to past issues at the top and it's April 2005.
Scientific American Mind
Very interesting information, especially for a new perspective on my jazz improvising.

Excerpted from "Creativity Unleashed" by Ulrich Kraft
The right hemisphere's divergent thinking underlies our ability to be creative. Curiosity, love of experimentation, playfulness, risk taking, mental flexibility, metaphorical thinking, aesthetics--all these qualities play a central role. But why does creativity remain so elusive? Everyone has a right hemisphere, so we all should be fountains of unorthodox ideas.

Consider that most children abound in innovative energy: a table and an old blanket transform into a medieval fortress, while the vacuum cleaner becomes the knight's horse and a yardstick a sword. Research suggests that we start our young lives as creativity engines but that our talent is gradually repressed. Schools place overwhelming emphasis on teaching children to solve problems correctly, not creatively. This skewed system dominates our first 20 years of life: tests, grades, college admission, degrees and job placements demand and reward targeted logical thinking, factual competence, and language and math skills--all purviews of the left brain. The propensity for convergent thinking becomes increasingly internalized, at the cost of creative potential. To a degree, the brain is a creature of habit; using well-established neural pathways is more economical than elaborating new or unusual ones. Additionally, failure to train creative faculties allows those neural connections to wither. Over time it becomes harder for us to overcome thought barriers. Creativity trainers like to tell clients: "If you always think the way you always thought, you'll always get what you always got--the same old ideas."