Create: Day 54
August 24, 2011 
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Day 54
Human ingenuity. It takes a corps.
Huxley, Man's Place in Nature. Public domain.
An interesting 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal takes on the question of creativity and collaboration…in a big, evolutionary way. Here’s the intro:
“Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years—the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once “progress” started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success—tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language—seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals. Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—
because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.”
This fits in with the myth busting we did the other day regarding the singularity of the artist’s temperament, and also fits in nicely with something we all know: joining a group and being part of a community spurs our creativity. Need I repeat myself? Become part of a creative tribe.
Create Month 2
What to do so far:
In case you missed a day, the reminders below are clickable.
Don’t put off creativity.
Use your limited experience with unlimited imagination.
Don’t worry about the destination.
If you’re stuck, lower your standards and go on.
Take a creativity vacation.
Value your creative visions.
Moodle every other week.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan I.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan II.
Fill out Creative Project Completion Plan III.
Track project reality versus guesstimates.
Practice seeing creatively.
Keep a creative project box.
On the Ides, I’d rather be…
Your materials don’t make the masterpiece…you do.
Be creative 7 days a week.
Get happy…and more creative.
Don’t envy fellow creatives.
Protect your creative time and space.
Track nonessential time.
Don’t swallow myths about creativity.
Get happy. Be creative.
Join a creative tribe.
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