How vuja de improves our creativity and empathy
“There is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.”
Whenever someone talks about the feeling of déjà vu it carries this mysterious and elusive quality. Déjà vu is a weird phenomenon that makes you second-guess your memories and experiences. It’s that well-known feeling of encountering something new that feels familiar.
After you have that odd intuition of already meeting someone you just met for the first time, or feeling like you’ve already been through a situation you just encountered, it leaves you with that eerie feeling of being in dream on loop. It’s usually described as something magical or mystical, like when soul mates first meet and feel like they’ve already known each other. It’s cute, a little freaky, and definitely a cliché we’ve heard one too many times. In fact, the feeling of déjà vu comes up in a lot of romanticized meant-to-be stories, whether it’s about travelling, relationships, life purpose, and all sorts of other philosophical frills.
But here’s the complete opposite to déjà vu: vuja de. Meaning “already seen” in French, vuja de is the feeling of seeing something familiar that you may have witnessed or experienced a billion times before, but it feels completely new to you.
Vuja de is the feeling of seeing something familiar that you may have witnessed or experienced a billion times before, but it feels completely new to you.
From repurposing old household items for new uses, to reimagining the modern use for an old-fashioned tool, vuja de is all about seeing old concepts or ideas in a new light. When it comes to exercising your creative muscle, having a vuja de mentality may be your biggest asset. When artists or innovators seek to reinvent the wheel or produce new art, they’re taking elements of existing ideas, and remixing and reworking them into new ones. We see this in the most popular of innovations, like the combination of the camera, computer, and phone to create the iPhone. We also see this in some of the most popular art, like Andy Warhol turning familiar celebrity faces into colorful works of pop art. Whether or not you consider yourself a “creative”, being able to seamlessly shift your perception is a valuable ability in many facets of your day-to-day routine.
In the world of business, vuja de is the kind of mentality that prompts a Eureka moment, enabling us to gain new insights into old problems. In author and psychologist Adam Grant’s book Originals, he uses the example of the inception of Warby Parker to describe what vuja de is like in innovation. Warby Parker, the discount eyeglasses brand valued at approximately $1.2 billion as of 2016, began when Dave Gilboa saw eyeglasses as any other technical invention instead of a medical purchase. His questioning as to why eyeglasses had to cost him more than his smartphone led him to seek to create a cheaper alternative, hence the birth of Warby Parker. Innovators, business leaders and employers across industries are all striving to tap into vuja de to fuel innovation and create the next best thing.
In fact, in many creative industries, this way of thinking may also be referred to as design thinking. The first time I heard about design thinking was from a 99 Percent Invisible podcast, when narrator Roman Mars eloquently described architectural design strategies that cause people to behave a certain way. It wasn’t until I was designing a report for work when I was “cursed with the design mentality,” as my boss warned me. When I left the computer after hours behind an illustrator art board, I couldn’t help but pay closer attention to design in the physical world. Shapes, lines, colours, structures, and textures stood out to me more than before and what I couldn’t stop examining was the usability and functionality of the designs. The behaviours and emotions caused by certain designs are a major part in understanding why things are created a certain way. What’s so attractive about design thinking is that it’s a solution-focused way of approaching a design that considers how the user interacts with it.
Yet this user-focused, vuja de mentality extends beyond business or design, and is a vital part of human empathy. When we become desensitized to our everyday routines, we might only skim the surface of our relationships, missing out on really understanding the other people involved. American investor and philanthropist Ray Dalio points out “there is a strong tendency to get used to and accept very bad things that would be shocking if seen with fresh eyes.” Through seeing the people, objects, and systems around us in fresh ways, we can avoid desensitization and take on more innovative and emotionally understanding ways of thinking.
So where do we start?
On the journey to experiencing a vuja de mentality, I’ve come across some interesting techniques that make people reverse their perspectives. Here are my favourites:
Switch back and forth between the big and small picture on a situation
Look for the artistic potential of everyday sights
Aim to question the symbolism or function of objects and designs around you
If you have relationships that model a mentor/mentee dynamic, switch roles to see what the teacher can learn from the student
Look at negative things as positive and vice versa
Reverse your perceptions on seemingly linear things like cause and effect
Remember to reflect on your habits, you don’t have to let old habits die hard!
On your most seemingly dull and mediocre of moments, tap into a vuja de for a refreshing perspective that can stimulate your creative mind.
