CREATIVITY, CREATORSHIP AND THE FUTURE by Steve Denham


“IF YOU’RE NOT PREPARED to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”, says British cultural visionary and expert on creativity, Sir Ken Robinson, who also contends that we don’t grow into creativity – we grow out of it – or rather, we get educated out of it. The non-profit initiative dedicated to


ideas worth spreading, TED (an acronym for Technology, Education, Design) filmed and presented Robinson’s 2006 talk to a live audience arguing that schools kill creativity. Since the video was posted that year to TED.com, it has attracted almost 10.5 million views. The question of creativity holds


significant implications for life in the 21st century. Robinson’s point is that we urgently need to nurture, not squander, the innate creativity of children; otherwise, we further imperil a future, which is already profoundly unknown, even over the next five years. For Robinson creativity is now as important as literacy. However, a growing number of reports of internet and video game addiction and dysfunctional behaviour among teenagers highlights the fact that the impact of technology in 2012 already transcends the classroom. The age of information is rapidly


dissolving the boundaries that used to separate the key areas of human activity – life/work, domestic/professional, secular/ spiritual, entertainment/educational. And ironically enough, it appears that the very creativity Robinson argues is being extinguished in educational systems around the world also underlies much of the present-day acceleration and proliferation of content. Education may not be fostering


creativity quite as we’d like it to, but it’s important to acknowledge that much of the current situation is based on an abundance of it – albeit a creativity under duress. Never has creativity been so harnessed to the needs of commerce and consumerism. In the past, creative genius was a mantle reserved for exceptional individuals – Aristotle, Michelangelo, Newton, Edison, to name a few. Now it is all around us, invisible and anonymous; simmering inside innovative products and services that pervade all walks of life. British science fiction writer, scientist


and visionary Arthur C. Clarke postulated three laws of prediction, the third of which goes, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We have not lost our creativity; the market is saturated with it – deployed


every day by the army of programmers, analysts and architects whose modern-day wizardry we take for granted. It is not a question of regaining what we have lost but of finding a new way to call upon the creativity which is already there; engaging it with questions related to far more than the mercenary needs of entrepreneurs and business moguls. We need to draw from this wellspring now, as much as we need to ensure it is nurtured among our youth to empower future generations. In 2012 the technology-driven


acceleration of life, is itself accelerating. In the midst of this exponential change, a crisis of identity ripples across multiple levels of who we are and the society we live in – an ethos riddled with contradiction. Change requires us to adapt, to acquire new skills and knowledge; but the pace of today’s workplace gives us little or no time for the learning necessary to keep up with it. Even where employees do attend courses of training, high-pressure work demands can restrict the integration of new knowledge into the workflow. Businesses upgrade in the interests of not lagging behind, but the gulf between the technologies they subscribe to and usability is widening – particularly as the economic imperative for survival drives shorter and shorter cycles of product release and update. Technological advance has not


saved us time or energy – rather we find ourselves busier and working longer hours than ever before; while increasingly complex legislation designed to protect privacy and the rights of the individual runs parallel with mass online opportunism and voyeuristic social media. Needless to say, all this only exacerbates our time-poverty; further depleting the energy and attention we have available for the things we tell ourselves we are actually working for – meaningful relationships, spiritual fulfilment, happiness. What will be the tipping point? And


is there anything we can do now to avoid it? How can we engage creativity today, so that we can all reap the benefit? Reflecting on the adage ‘two wrongs


don’t make a right’ raises some intriguing questions concerning the nature of creativity. Ken Robinson observes that mathematics is traditionally on top of the hierarchy of subjects in education systems around the world. Not surprisingly, this numerical model is a basis for common perceptions of right and wrong, including the belief that the single correct answer is all-important. Of course 2 + 2 will never answer 5, but outside of arithmetic,


this paradigm can be found wanting – particularly in relation to philosophical questions of truth, reality and spirituality. Yet even here, where there may be no right or wrong answer, we are still conditioned to see little or no value in being wrong – or worse, fearful of being seen as ignorant or stupid. Society’s intolerance of mistake and


imperfection may seem peculiar in the light of discoveries attributed to that venerable index of human evolutionary progress – science. Running through the history of science is a rich vein of error, serendipity and accident instrumental to many of its breakthroughs. No self- respecting scientist sets out to fail – however, their preparedness to be wrong or proven so, to learn from mistakes and press on, has been shown to be a prerequisite for success time and time again. In science it is normal for theories,


which are eventually superseded, to first enjoy a period of preeminence – that is to say, they are ‘correct’ for a while before being shown to be wrong. In turn they are replaced by new theories, which attract the same scrutiny. Einstein’s theory of relativity – itself a triumph of creativity in the discipline of physics – was preceded by the work of Copernicus and Newton. At the time they were proposed, however, these earlier theories were the best available explanation of the laws governing the natural world. History shows us that even in the


world of empirical science there is no absolute right or wrong, knowledge is in a constant state of flux and evolution – and qualities like curiosity, courage and intuition play an essential role in what is very much a creative process. Lateral thinking guru, Edward de Bono is also well known for his strategies which recognise the value of intuition and offer ways to stimulate creative thinking in response to day-to-day problems – helping us to break out of habitual thought patterns. But is this the creativity we urgently


need as the global quickening takes its toll on society? Is the future about learning to think and feel differently, or completely letting go of that which feels and thinks, to open ourselves to another dimension of experience? Without a change of heart, a


transformation that takes place at the very core of our being, it is hard to see how we can truly create a new future for ourselves and our children. We are already mentally over stimulated, time-poor and running


on empty; surely it makes more sense to find ways to stop, slow down and cultivate inner stillness than it does to replace one activity with another. The age of information is redefining


traditional concepts of time and space. Technologies that know no boundaries are already engaging and manipulating that most sacrosanct preserve – the mind, the world of imagination and laying siege to the citadel that dwells within each of us, the human soul. The quickening of life on this planet is largely a mental phenomenon which, neglected, will have consequences for our state of mind. Our mental well-being is at risk. In this brave new world, we need to


listen to the wisdom of our forefathers which calls us to stop and look within; offering us the tools to realise again our God-like potential, and get back in touch with something which has become an endangered species as we enter the second decade of the 21st century: creatorship. We can speak of creation without


reference to Darwinian concepts and its debate with the fundamentalist religious worldview. Just as every human being is a part of creation – this miraculous presence of life on earth – so too can we become creators. The innate creativity of the child, which inspires Ken Robinson and other commentators to ask what is possible for the future, also offers us a living, breathing example of what is everyone’s birthright, regardless of age. Leonardo Da Vinci’s thought


provoking observation that “among the great things found among us, the greatest of these is the existence of nothing” is a pearl of insight pointing us in the right direction. As it comes from a man who explored his own God-given creative gifts to extraordinary lengths, we should strive to understand the wisdom behind this statement – but not in the way that we normally process information in our distracted, busy world. Embracing creativity today involves


more than learning a few techniques for generating fresh ideas and novel solutions – although these may be an essential part of the journey. We need to empty ourselves, to open our hearts, minds and bodies to higher energies and levels of consciousness; we need to be creative more than just learn how to think and feel more creatively. As the biblical book of Genesis so profoundly expresses it, we are made in the image of God. So too are we born with the potential to become a creators in our own right.


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