You have to know things to be reasonably creative but there is a point where memorizing more stifles creativity. Memorization is often very passive and is funda

You have to know things to be reasonably creative but there is a point where memorizing more stifles creativity. Memorization is often very passive and is fundamentally different from searching for new ways of doing things. It's hard to make sweeping statements like this because there are different modes of memory and different modes of creativity. There is a lot of memory involved in being creative, but I think setting out to memorize things is a bad way to be creative. You have to practice being creative. In doing so, you will naturally remember a lot of stuff like what works, what doesn't, and most importantly which types of things you ought to memorize. For example if you're programming you will find it useful to remember the syntax of your languages. If you're writing you'll find it useful to remember styles and vocabulary. And so on...