G21 - DAY ONE: The Power of Creativity

MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"

The Power of Creativity

by Wolf De Voon

G21 Irregular

To receive this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Francaise, cut and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/do70.htm"), then click here.

BOULDER, CO - Straight off, let's agree that creation has nothing to do with bombing Serbia or Timbuktu.

Having worked in advertising, I certify that creation is an entirely separate endeavor; it pertains to something other than marketing or pandering.

Creation does not proceed from the known. It cannot be purchased by grasping the elements of tradition or pragmatism. It has no brand value, no utilitarian return-on-investment.

Neither is creation a result of science or mathematics, although creators draw on every skill known to humanity and all of our history. But just as a priest must use a dollop of mechanical physics in order to waltz half-conscious through a meaningless ritual, a thousand other trades require their practitioners to understand that 2 + 2 = 4. Slander not the creators merely because they sup from our collective storehouse of language and arts.

What separates creation from all other human endeavor is The Unknown. If you become learned and skillful, nothing has been created, unless you attack The Unknown and poke at the darkness it holds.

In terms of pure creativity, an ignorant savage is better equipped to face the black Unknown than a trained scientist. Where a scholar would see recurring patterns and well-known phenomena, at least an idiot devoid of knowledge has an even chance of creation. Ignorance may never be blissful, but it certainly multiplies the probability of creation. When you consider that all religion, fable, mythology, art and romance arose from human creativity, in the absence of or in contradiction to known fact, the Unknown seems indifferent, at best, to wisdom. The fastest way to stop someone from playing with matches is to cite "conventional wisdom."

Cops are an extension of the public good, striving to defeat creativity before it hurts someone. The public good is known to mind-numbing detail. The first rule of order is tokeep from experimenting with The Unknown.

This is not a criticism of order and public safety. I am merely drawing an important distinction between the known and agreed facts of good government and the destabilizing disaster of turning the world upside-down by probing The Unknown.

For a thousand years, it was understood and widely agreed that Bishops ruled by divine right and that the sun orbited the earth. It was forbidden to think contrarily or creatively about either paradigm of such "conventional wisdom." Those who saw it as would an ignorant savage, completely deaf to the counsel of others, freed us from Rome. Another set of heretics liberated America from George III and Parliament. Most people thought it was insane to declare the Rights of Man. Certainly, one would be deemed silly to assert such a thing today --- that citizens possess inalienable rights superior to the express will of Congress.

The essence of creation is to view everything on earth as a new problem, without reference to "conventional wisdom" or the threat of retribution

, if you explore The Unknown. It is terribly difficult to create something new.

Vast numbers of people find it impossible to conceive of any sort of innovation beyond an elaboration of the known --- like making a computer chip slightly faster or smaller. Genuine innovators are rare. They are always difficult, strange individuals whose genius makes others uncomfortable. Nor are their innovations complex, completely divergent from our general diffusion of knowledge.

In a sense, Edison invented nothing. He merely tested a thousand materials and methods until one of them made electric illumination practical. He was an innovator, but he was not a creator.

Creators define an entirely new topic of inquiry, giving us new eyes, new forms to apprehend, new words that fall on deaf ears. Creators are always ignored. A majority are thrown in jail and live in poverty. Very few prevail.

Which brings me to our birth-right of bomb-throwing.

The first thing to question like a savage is our language. While I appreciate the beaut and infinite flexibility of English, many words seem like prison walls and mental handcuffs.

Ask yourself who benefits and who suffers when we use a word like "duty." If the goal of creation is to illuminate The Unknown, why exactly do we need terms like "shelter" or "education?" With six billion lives at stake, how much sense does it make to talk about "America" or "my family?" What exactly is a "friend?"

The language we use is a closed-circuit feeding back on itself in a million frozen loops, each one firmly attached to a legacy of someone else's dictum, some tribal myth that deserves to be blasted and shattered.

This is our first and only challenge as creators. Fuck Marx and Jesus, to hell with Mom and Dad. Start from scratch on your own. The city is a nameless, uncharted swirl of anarchy, with no order except that which you personally perceive. The elements of earth, wind and fire are new tools, probably hidden by words you've learned to accept as customary labels, and which conceal the true, unknown character of those ubiquitous forces. Is the earth a spaceship? A living organism? A lump of rock? Who owns it? Who own anything ---and why?

Sorry.... that's all you get, if you want to be a creator, a million unanswered questions.

Everything we are, and everything we might become in the future, depends people like you having the courage to take a stab at finding answers to your own in the Great Unknown.

WOLF DE VOON is a writer and educator who has recently moved from Scotland to Boulder, Colorado, USA. His most recent contributions to the G21 were on

Talkback to the G21

| HOME | THE MAIN EVENT | FAX NIKITA

Let us know how your experience of our site went. We love your backfeed!
Our Editor does listen!