Creativity
 Aleksandar Malečić |
In these turbulent times you can either
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Talents and creativity can be learnt and replicated. They cannot be learnt (only) in schools, but it's also important whether you are close to the center of a creative scene or not. You don't believe me? Here are some examples:
I could add more examples (Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne and Dio, Massive Attack and Tricky, Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth, Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Can...). The point is that talents can replicate and they do replicate. It's like a rule with very few exceptions. It works the same way in other human activities. I used musical examples just because they are more obvious. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Are there eccentric people in your area, interested in many things and who follow the rule "Everything is possible, unless proven opposite". There are in Serbia. I know some of them, or I know them through e-mail exchanges or I know people who know them. I am not talking here (necessarily) about people working on sustainability. Some people constantly think unconventionally and rarely follow the rest of the herd. I shall not mention names. They would know I am writing about them if they read this text. I shall try to think and behave like them. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Do you have a unique talent, something that makes you different? I am not talking about being different for the sake of being different. There must be something deeply rooted inside of you that makes you unique. How many sentences are enough to describe it? Are there like-minded people around you, different from you but with whom you still share worldviews and/or talents? When did you use your uniqueness? When would you use it? |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Once upon a time, our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. Hunters/gatherers are people who can't control their environment. They don't have plans, institutions, economy and politics. They don't have stability and GDP. They use their talents to do things as good as they can. They listen and observe their environment and expect the unexpected. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Is there a kind of activity that doesn't necessarily belong to our profession or working position, but activates a sense of duty and dedication inside of you? Something that is not necessarily pleasant, but would still motivate you to keep on moving forward like a perpetuum mobile? We all know that a perpetuum mobile is physically impossible and that both machines and people need support and energy from the outside world, but perhaps you still can answer the question from the beginning of this comment. Write it down here if you want to. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
"The glow retreats, done in the day of toil; This quote from Goethe's Faust has inspired Nikola Tesla to think about alternating current. As you can see, he didn't actually think about electric current. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Never plan new ideas/innovations/solutions to happen. They have always been unplanned. If you were an active member of this meshwork and creator of something new, it would be well documented here in front of your and other people's eyes. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
It's time for brilliant people. But, even the most brilliant people can't be amazing and creative all the time. Politicians with passion, enthusiasm and craziness (willing to start something big as a war, but better) were never acceptable. Corporations, willing to keep running business as usual and spread across new and emerging markets, will need passionate politicians less than ever before. Climate change is inevitable, but perhaps we can do something about the worst possible scenario. How does the worst possible scenario look like? Think about the most terrifying life conditions you can imagine and the worst scenario is still uglier. Panic is good only if it will motivate you to do something to make a difference. Creativity will bloom in an information rich environment and people willing to do something creative. Are you good in something? Show it. Feed your enthusiasm. Be surrounded with like-minded people who understand the situation. Eat and breathe your capacity to think out of the box. Let the best ideas develop. Let other people continue when you can't. Nature knows nothing about values and political values. Adapt your values to the inevitable changes. Expect other people to hesitate. But, you must not be natural. You must stretch over your limits, feel the agony and make the right choice. Communities and interactions should be redefined. The biggest storm/flood/wind/drought ever will become usual. It will be demanding to fix demolished houses and infrastructure after every storm. Peak oil will be very complicated for people living in the "developed" world. Many products are made of oil. We must make our communities more stable and prepared for unexpected events. We must be like ants with big brains. Supply chains (as local as possible) should be adjusted to be more resistant to peak oil and climate change. How can we have more farmers working on smaller fields with more cultures and producing organic food for their local communities (peak oil and heavy weather conditions will suddenly appear "out of nowhere")? We must be creative about it. Agriculture (hunting and gathering can be challenging on this devastated and overpopulated planet) is the root of any your activity. You can't eat financial schemes and services. If agriculture fails, everything fails. No economy can survived without (local or abroad) agriculture. Speaking of agriculture, the paradox of monetary economy is that the most valuable things such as air, water and food must be cheap because everyone needs them. The non-monetary component of economy (volunteers, empathy, exchange) should be as big as possible. How big can it be? We must be creative about it. There is a discussion topic about it in this meshwork ( http:/ The key of success will be in trying and failing and then trying even more. Failures are even recommended in the beginning. Make the first step and fall directly on your nose. Use your nose ache as a lesson. Improvise. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
There is a difference between a pattern and recipe. I am doing here everything that I can to improve my knowledge and creativity related to sustainability. The words you are reading and my contributions within this meshwork written by an entirely different person from the one I used to be. It works. If it doesn't look so good to you, you would do it even better. I had been hesitating a lot before I joined this meshwork. I have a modest intellectual capacity, but this meshwork stretches it somehow beyond its limitations. You are more intelligent than me. You are an expert and I am not. Every average person would as an active member of this meshwork have contributions as good as mine or even better. Your creativity and knowledge would explode. Just let it happen. So, if this meshwork increased its dynamics, what would happen with my knowledge and creativity? It would at least double. This meshwork behaves like my extended mind, my additional organ. It lives and breathes with me. I've already mentioned in this discussion topic that there is a pattern - people close to the center of a creative scene regularly (but not always) become enormously creative themselves. Once I start dreaming this meshwork and its members, you will hardly get rid of me from the front line in the next decade. It doesn't mean that I would misuse my position. I suppose it's impossible for a person actively and transparently involved with this meshwork (or anything similar) to be involved in those filthy political schemes and combinations. In order to do something relevant in this collaborative tool dealing with extremely complex changes, first you must put your ego aside and beat it into a pulp. You must expose yourself, to be naked, to have dilemmas. If you feel comfortable as a beginner in this meshwork (or anything similar), then you have done something wrong. Ask questions. If you think that other people know answers, just look at the latest political speech/document/resolution. If you feel uncomfortable with your lack of knowledge, that's exactly what you should feel. At the peak of that unpleasant feeling, ask even more questions. As long as you hesitate the complications will keep on growing. As the complications keep on growing, IQ of an average politician willing to participate in hierarchy as usual (inherited political affairs and conflicts combined with new challenges) will be smaller and smaller. Their hearts will be smaller, too. It's simple as that - there are causes and there are their effects. The cure for our current situation, if there is any cure left, is to behave like ants. An individual ant is not intelligent, but its colony is. I'll never see the big picture, the whole chain of events behind my words written here. It's fine with me. Maybe there isn't a success behind my activities here, but this kind of activity definitely increases chances to succeed and that's all that matters to me at the moment. My chances to do something creative are huge in comparison to my first steps here. They are far away from 100 percent, but your contributions could improve them because my mind (both conscious and unconscious) would be even more involved in this meshwork. This meshwork is not supposed to be my ego trip. I need you. I am not better than you intellectually or as a person. As long as I am better in both categories than an average politician of yours, I don't see a single reason to hesitate. If you know a better online tool for this purpose, with better functionality and activities, let me know. The battle for sustainability will be fought online - here or somewhere else. The later it happens, the more complicated it will be. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Let's suppose you have bought a book. It's something you own and it contains a text that you and its author are going to share. I suppose a similar perception of knowledge and "love" toward a thing is between you and a borrowed book. Reading this book is some kind of ritual. If there are unread books bought long time ago, thinking of them will make you feel guilty. You must read them as soon as possible. Now, let's suppose you have downloaded a PDF document. It might be as good, informative and interesting as the book mentioned above. But, it's not physical and anyone connected to the World Wide Web. Alright, maybe I didn't exactly identify the origin of this phenomenon, but the fact is that the book is more interesting to us. The same video sold on DVD or uploaded directly on Youtube will be perceived differently. A thing that ("only") you own is read/watched/listened more carefully than something available for free on the Web. That text/video/song might be really interesting, but there are many beautiful multimedia contents just a mouse-click away. If you go to Youtube, you may be surprised by a relatively small number of views of some videos. Popular music videos that "everyone" has seen many times on TV have a million of watchers or less. So, it seems that the majority doesn't want to do much research - they prefer to be fed by the old-fashioned media and newspapers and magazines (physical or online). One of the most popular websites in Serbia is by radio and TV station B92. Even if blogs, discussions and text have absolutely nothing in common with that radio and television station, even if they are edited by other people, potential readers follow names. If you stumble upon a Youtube video separated in more parts, there is an enormous disproportion between the number of people who have watched the first and the last part. If we watched on our loved TV channel, chances are we would swallow it in its entirety like a young and hungry bird, especially if there aren't many other channels. When control is on our side, we have problems to properly use it. This is how thing work in this virtual realm. People are passive and they need guides to tell them what to watch, listen, or read. On the other hand, anyone (including me) can post his/her thoughts or ideas. Somewhere in this hyperactive and information-saturated environment with a majority that still needs guides and trend-setters should be developed virtual creative scenes. It's a difficult task. Do we need them at all? Politics as we know it with the greedy becoming greedier and the rich richer will never spontaneously change. If we expect the initiative for turning thing upside down from political hierarchy, we will be cooked like the frog from that legendary experiment. Something must be done. Politics as usual needs help (even more when it doesn't recognize this need) from more adaptive and flexible networks. Complex problems need equally complex approaches to problem-solving. But, is it doable? It should better be doable. One important component of development of creativity that should be mentioned here is consumerism. Consumerism means that people spend a lot of money in buying nice (or well advertised) things. A creative person working on something bizarre can also expect some money from people who appreciate his/her work and have money. Money doesn't grow on trees. Economic growth means more money. It feeds on consumerism. Consumerism causes damage in the environment and as such it's a disease. Economic growth feeds on a disease. Creativity and initiative often feed on that same disease. Relatively economically rich countries can have an initiative in development of renewable energy and green technologies. The same money (and cash flow) is supposed to be used for destruction and creation. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Let’s suppose that this meshwork is some kind of emerging creative scene. Who would I be as a member of this scene? Later I’ll discuss here a possible outcome that nothing big happens here. I belong to the first wave of this virtual creative scene. Am I qualified for this role? Well, we might discuss about my IQ, knowledge and education or working experience. It really isn’t impressive. Still, maybe I share something with a usual member of the first way of a creative scene. Those people think outside the box. I’ve been thinking outside the box all my life. I don’t even know where the box is. Members of the first wave generally aren’t obsessed with success and popularity. Sure, they would appreciate some kind of recognition, but there are easier ways to become popular than to working on something uncertain and trying to create things from scratch. Those people feel more comfortable with uncertainty and unknown outcomes than with status quo. In order to start things moving, a member of the first wave of a creative scene needs some kind of audience. I am writing some texts here and at reading about sustainability renewable energy. I am also trying to be more involved in renewable energy as a PhD student. I am doing my best. I am talking in this comment about me, but my example works for any virtual creative scene such as this meshwork. While posting my stuff here, I was receiving good feedback. It’s nothing spectacular, but I’ve never expected it to be. It was enough. Why is the audience important? First of all, it encourages a member of the first wave. It’s easier to work on something that maybe has sense. So, do my activities here make sense? I think they do. Politics and hierarchy as usual are tired and they aren’t complex and interactive enough to properly deal with increasingly complex problems. I don’t thing, I know that something like this meshwork is necessary. Shall I or any member of the first wave of a virtual creative scene such as this meshwork change the world? No, it won’t happen. Weird people from the first wave aren’t supposed to bring the change. This is the role of the second wave. The role of the first wave is to set the path and to imagine the unimaginable. Individuals from the first wave are too eccentric. Individuals from the first and from the second wave have totally different mindsets. Before I start writing about the second wave, I should mention another role of the audience. No matter what we usually believe, we aren’t independent individuals. The way you talk, the way you walk, the way you dress, the way you move and your entire mentality are influenced by other people. It’s bidirectional – you influence them as much as they influence you. We imitate each other. We are less rational than we tend to believe. Also, I’ve already mentioned in this discussion topic a pattern. If you are closer to the center of a creative scene and if you spend your time with time with pioneers, you will start dreaming and breathing creativity. This will enormously increase your chances to do something creative. There isn’t anything paranormal in this fact. At least telepathy isn’t the most important component of this pattern. After the first wave there is the second wave of a creative scene. After experiments and failures and successes during the first wave, it’s time for less eccentric individuals to do some copycatting. In case of initiatives like this meshwork, it means analyzing what works and what doesn’t work. If some failures are necessary during the process, they should happen as soon as possible. The second wave is supposed to show results to a wider audience and move things forward. I’ve already mentioned here, but it should be mentioned once more. The description above can apply to an initiative similar to this meshwork. No one can understand the big picture. If it is “painted” properly, it doesn’t need to be understood. Don’t expect charismatic leaders to bring the change. It’s time for collective knowledge and wisdom. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Maybe this comment belongs to this topic: http:/ A nice example of two waves of a creative scene are Myspace and Facebook. Myspace was bigger at the beginning. Its early members were mostly people who were looking for something new. If you are interested in finding musicians or other creative individuals, Myspace is better. The entire functionality of Myspace (including the search engine) is much better for people trying to create something unique, such as blogs, pictures, music and videos. Networks of friends on Myspace are more dispersed. If you want to have fun, join Facebook. If you want to find or create something new, join Myspace. Facebook is too random and hyperactive. The second wave of a creative scene is bigger than the first one. Facebook is at the moment bigger than Myspace. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
We need miracles, breakthroughs similar to flight to the Moon. We need many trials, errors and occasional successes. We need new oil. Why is this goal more demanding than others in not so far history? There are many reasons such as:
One breakthrough or success story might do a lot. |
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Aleksandar Malečić |
Speaking of flight to the Moon in the previous comment - the breakthroughs in fighting fascism and space missions had something aggressive (cold or real war) in them. The 20th century belonged to aggressive human tendencies. The same amount of money invested in killing that one terrorist would have done many nice things in the field of renewable energy. In order to succeed, this lifetime must be an age of networks, collaboration and ad-hoc teams (all those subtle things hardly traceable by monetary economy) and competition against former monopolies. We need to turn the usual mindset upside down. |
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