Creativity is an infinitely expanding force

pieces

Human creativity never ends. It never runs out of new space to play in. In fact, the more human creativity is exercised, the more creative potential there is. This is truly remarkable. Maybe even a little eerie. I sometimes think of my brain's potential to imagine and think of new things (things I haven't thought of before) as being a 3-dimensional space of unexplored territory. It's the mental space of possibilities, of new ideas, of new insights, and thoughts about anything and everything. My ability to explore this territory (my creative ability/imagination) are surely a function of things like my education, my mental "flexibility," my intention and motivation to engage my imagination, my persistence and goals in doing so, and probably a whole bunch of other factors. In the physical world, the more unexplored territory we explore, the less unexplored territory there is left. But in the realm of the unexplored territory of the imagination--I believe something quite different and remarkable happens: the more territory we explore, the more new unexplored territory is created. Human creativity expands its own potential. Even a little bit of human creativity creates a lot more new creative space to be explored, We get more back than we put in. I think we can confidently infer--after this much time and experience with various human civilizations--that human creativity is a force that has yet to run out or become exhuasted. My own deep intuition tells me that we are not getting closer to running out of new ideas, insights, and imagination, but that there is much more left to be imagined now than ever. Creativity doesn't use up or deplete ideas, it creates even more space where even more creativity can be generated. If true, this is REMARKABLE and violates our basic sense of how things work. Maybe "human creativity" is a magical force. Creativity always seems to create more space for humans to work and play in. Creativity works to expand its own potential. The more creativity the more creative potential. This property of creativity runs counter to most natural and intuitive thinking about creativity. Because inspired (and certainly radical) creativity seem to be fairly rare commodities, it leads us to the mistaken inference that "creativity" is a limited or "precious" resource. There's not enough of it to go around. You occasionally will hear someone lamenting that "nothing is new," "it's all been done before," that all the "really creative" stuff in [field-X] has already been done. There aren't any new riffs left to be discovered in rock n roll. Someone claims that the early days of X were the golden days for creativity when everything was fresh, new, creative and inspiring. THERE IS NO AREA, EDGE OR FACET OF OUR WORLD THAT CREATIVITY CAN'T CHANGE, IMPROVE, EXTEND, OR REFRESH. CREATIVITY CAN'T BE STOPPED. It doesn't run out of room or space in which to operate. It knows no absolute road blocks. As a society, we honor Jimmy Hendricks, not because he laid claim to the largest area of creative space in rock 'n roll. We honor him for how much creative space he opened up for others. He opened doors into rooms that we didn't even know were there. The perpetually surprising nature of creativity is that it never gets exhausted. Humans can get temporarily exhausted or "drained" from being creative, but we've never heard of anyone getting permanently drained of all creativity. Creativity itself never gets used up. Anywhere or anytime. There are no documented cases of any area of human endeavor, craft, or art where it has all been done before and there is simply nothing new or creative that can be done. That's an amazing quality and runs contrary to our normal scarcity thinking. It defies out understanding of physics...it appears to violate the law of the conservation of matter and energy. Someone always comes along and finds more creative potential. Opens doors to more creative space and possibilities. That's been done before . This assertion, this attitude is one of the enemies of creativity. It's one of the perennial put downs of the sophmoric art student. "Oh, that's just derivative of X." - The story of Dada & Fluxus. The irony of dramatically expanding creativity being dismissed as being "over." Creativity is the perpetual motion machine. Right brain dominance. Rise of science/left brain Renaissance -- right & left brain, with left-brain leading The rational/scientific age--left brain dominance Fluxaissance -- right & left brain, with right-brain leading