by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved 2011

The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike.[i] Jacob Bronowski – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination

We live in a world that is obsessed with celebrating differences, distinctions and diversity. We agree that we should (and do) rejoice in the tremendous progress that has been made in championing causes to provide equality within societies and between peoples, where differences were formerly the basis for excluding and/or diminishing the universal dignity of others.

Yet, when one examine homo sapiens, it’s rather remarkable how similar we are. From a purely external perspective, the vast majority of us possess one head, two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, eight fingers, two thumbs, ten toes, two feet, two legs and two arms. Diving beneath the skin, we find one heart, two lungs, two kidneys, one liver etc. — you get the picture. It’s when we plunge further into the human concoction that our certainty about what we claim to know becomes much murkier. They have even come up with a word (that most folks can’t even spell) to describe the study of how we know what we claim to know. It’s called epistemology.

When I examine the writings and research in the field of epistemology, it becomes rather obvious that one of the primary problems with the data is who we’re asking or observing; primarily children who can’t speak, and adults.  It has been said that “very little is scientifically known about the phenomenology of the infant mind; about what it’s like to be a baby.”[i] So, that’s where I’ve decided to start; with recollections from my infancy.

For me, it all began at birth. According to my mom, I came into this world screaming my lungs out! Although nobody could understand what I was shrieking, here’s what was going through my newborn mind: Where am I? Where did all these bright lights come from? Who are these creatures? They’re squealing! Why is this being wiping me with a towel? What have I done wrong? Why do these creatures have masks on? What are they trying to hide? Are they going to hurt me? What’s that creature in the bed crying for? Who’s the guy at the end of the bed with his arms extended toward me who hasn’t shaved and has a cigar in his breast pocket? What kind of welcome into a new reality is this? Is this permanent?

From the moment we arrive in life, we possess the ability to question. In my case, (I have the feeling you may have had a similar experience), my mom and dad started making funny sounds in my face, grabbing my toes and fingers, and doing other weird stuff that adults do to infants that led me to smile and laugh — until somebody hoisted a device that caused a sunburst in my eyes, scaring the literal crap out of me, and caused to me to, once again, start screaming at the top of my lungs; “What the heck did you do that for? Was that supposed to be funny? Whose idea was that? Could you at least give me some warning the next time you might decide to do something that frightening? Do you realize I’ve only been here with you people less than thirty minutes? Once again, all questions.

I heard these creatures ask stuff like; “Isn’t he adorable? Is he healthy? What will we name him? Can I hold him? Doesn’t he look just like you?” (At this juncture, I was wondering if my name was he-him-you — What does that mean? Do I have a choice in this name thing? Can I change it if I don’t like it?). From the very first moments of my conscious existence, I heard questions from other people.

Within a few days, these people took me home. They laid me on a mattress in what appeared to be a wooden cage with vertical bars three feet high, spaced three inches apart, on all four sides – designed intentionally to contain tiny beings my size. (This certainly made me feel welcome). They covered me with a strange smelling, multi-colored blanket, and made more weird sounds and faces at me. Then, the guy reached up and spun this weird contraption attached to the ceiling above me. My bladder exploded (again) due to the magnitude of the shock and awe that ricocheted through my body. And yes, I erupted in a rage of screams and tears at the sight of those weird figurines attached to threads clanking and chaotically bouncing around above me. My “momma,” as she incessantly referred to herself, clearly unnerved, began excitedly asking the beer breath guy, “What does he want? Is he hungry? Should I pick him up? What do you think? (I started wailing even more violently as I was becoming even more certain about the fact that these two had actually named me he-him-you).

The guy – who still hadn’t shaved (now wearing some wretched scent he had splashed on his cheeks and neck) turned to his left and reached for something. The next thing I knew, a small black bear was being waved above my face, with the strange looking guy making all these really stupid cooing sounds. I went nuts! I was so terrified I lost my voice. My mouth was wide open, tear ducts had been completely drained, my heart was pounding as though it might break through my chest cavity, my face was purple — and no sound was coming out of me. I was so shocked I guess I regained my composure and passed out. I fell sound asleep from the exhaustion of it all.

Upon awakening (always a process for me), my first sensation was my right hand was clutching some curious, furry thing. It was quiet. I smelled something new. I felt thirst. My mouth tasted funny. Then, my stomach growled (first time). The stomach rumble startled my eyes to open at seemingly that exact, same instant, and there it was; a freaking black bear staring me right in the face! You can imagine the ensuing hysteria that accompanied my primal reaction…

We homo sapiens are a curious bunch. Our initial experiences at birth are just the beginning of it all. Beyond the obvious external similarities and a common internal plumbing arrangement, that appears to be where the diversity among us really begins. According to Wikipedia, the Latin translation for homo sapiens refers to a wise or knowing man.[ii]

What we say we know about our species versus other forms of life is that we possess “a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving.”[iii]

Have you ever wondered why we were designed with all five senses located around the same area as your brain? I have. Our senses ask questions and send signals to our brain. Does this look safe, taste good, sound right, feel good, smell appetizing? Imagine waking up one morning and you have lost the ability to question. You would be incapable of any of the following:

Where am I?

What time is it?

What day is it?

What am I going to do today?

Where’s the coffee?

What am I going to wear today?

Where’s the bathroom?

Where are my car keys?

Try it. Put a note next to your bed that says “no questions.” When you wake up tomorrow, let’s see how long can you go without either asking yourself or another person a question? This would be both audibly and mentally. This exercise includes hearing one from someone else, as well as reading a question in the morning paper, a billboard you pass on the way to work or one posed on the internet. You’ll be awakened to how central questions are to our daily existence. We’re wired to question.

Born Questians

The human brain seems to play a central role in this inescapable capacity. That when I stumbled onto a guy named John Medina and his book entitled Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School. John is a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant (I have no clue what that actually means other than he’s a lot smarter than I am). He’s also an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In his spare time, (the guy doesn’t have really any does he?), John is the Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. (Makes my brain ache just thinking about all of the above). I waded into John’s Brain Rules book, wondering if his research could shed any light on our thesis that we’re born to question, as my experience at birth suggests above. According to Medina, we humans are powerful and natural explorers.[iv] Regarding infants, John writes; “Babies may not have a whole lot of understanding about their world, but they know a whole lot about how to get it.”[v] He goes on to illuminate the experience I had, in the moments and days I’ve shared above. Listen closely to the following: “Let’s look under the hood of an infant’s mind at the engine that drives its thinking processes and the motivating fuel that keeps its intellect running. This fuel consists of a clear, high–octane, unquenchable need to know. Babies are born with a deep desire to understand the world          around them and an incessant curiosity that compels them to aggressively explore it. This need for explanation is so powerfully stitched into their experience that some scientists describe it as a drive, just as hunger and thirst and sex are drives.”[vi] (emphasis is mine).

There’s a real sense of freedom that comes over me as I read the above. It’s refreshing to realize that what seemed so diabolically odd to me at birth, turns out to be normal, healthy and a universal human experience. I have a very personal confession to make to you: We are born Questians.

The Discovery of The  ‘Q’ Gene

I readily admit that I was born with a deep desire to understand. Medina refers to this as a drive. I possess a seemingly innate need for explanation. I’m an ordinary guy who celebrates his unquenchable need to know. I rejoice in our capacity for curiosity. I’m an explorer. I am humbled by the gift of being equipped to develop both understanding and meaning.

Think about your life for a minute. Can you recall moments or periods in your life where you felt a drive or deep desire to understand? Does the need to know continue to inhabit your life experience? Are you curious about things? Has your experience in life been inhabited by the ongoing development of your understanding of the world around, and within you? If you’re honest, your answer is “of course.” What might this mean for your own identity, your interaction with others, your worldview and your future? What are the implications for how this awareness might impact or refresh your perception of other folks who inhabit this planet?

Here’s the point: I hereby announce the discovery of the ‘Q’ gene to the world! This strand of nucleic acid inhabits each and every homo sapien that is birthed into this world — that would include you! Yep, you’ve got it too. We all do. That includes your friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers – anyone you can think of. We’re all infected with this genetic propensity.

Congratulations! You’ve just been provided with a discovery that will help you recognize this fundamental and essential aspect of your composition as both a unique individual and as a member of the human species. Say it out loud as you read this self-affirming declaration: I’m a Questian! Say it again- – louder this time. How do you feel realizing that you are one who was birthed with a deep desire to understand? One who possesses an innate need for explanation; a creation engineered with an unquenchable need to know; an explorer; one who is composed with the capacity for curiosity, and gifted with the propensity to embrace the ongoing challenge of developing both understanding and meaning – for yourself and others – throughout your lifetime? If you’re anything like the vast majority of people I have had the opportunity to discuss this discovery with, it’s a cause for celebration.

Unconvinced? Imagine that you were incapable of being curious, interested, exploring and searching for meaning and understanding. Translation: Life would be vastly less lively than what you’ve experienced up to this point. Frankly, life would be terribly boring and you wouldn’t even be capable of understanding the meaning of it.

I‘ve also heard people say: “Yeah, I get it. But I wish I would have had this realization ten or twenty years ago. It’s too late for me. I’m a slave to routine. I don’t even have time to think!” Listen to what the experts say: “Researchers have shown that some regions of the adult brain stay as malleable as a baby’s brain, so we can grow new connections, strengthen existing connections, and even create new neurons, allowing all of us to be lifelong learners.”[vii]

From infancy to childhood, adolescence to adulthood, middle-age to senior citizen status, we carry the vast potential of the ‘Q’ gene – each and every one of us. There are no exceptions. How we do and what we do with this reality has profound implications for you, your life, and the cultures/societies in which we live, work, play, learn, grow and contribute. It involves a quest to reconsider how we presently understand the way meaning is made, and how we know what we think we know. You should be aware that this quest is risky business – it possesses the distinct potential to change you. Listen to the results of the research:

“The dynamic interaction between learning and development concerns the fundamental change in how meaning is made or how we know what we think we know….In-form-ative learning simply adds to the form as it is, whereas trans-form-ative learning “puts the form itself at risk of change.”[viii]

We will explore this subject later in this writing where we illuminate how Questian propensities can be nurtured and enhanced.

Let’s simply agree that we can all recognize two drives that inhabit the human species today. The first is a biological drive – the one that produces the yearning to eat, drink etc. The second drive is external and comes to us typically in the form of capturing rewards and avoiding punishments. If you refrain from driving too fast – you won’t get a speeding ticket. Work hard, achieve your performance objectives and you will earn a bonus. Yet, there is what has been referred to as a third drive [ix] – that is pertinent to activating the ‘Q’ gene within us. This third drive is laced with the human need for gratification and joy. The ‘Q’ gene is composed of a uniquely human drive that is activated by doing what we choose to do for (primarily) the joy of it.  Becoming aware of and acting upon the privilege of triggering your ‘Q’ gene improves your health. It also improves the groups we humans tend to form like friendships, businesses, schools, neighborhoods, cities and the like.

Before we get ahead of ourselves here, in the next chapter we’re going to explore what we call “The vaQuum” – a growing body of evidence that recognizes the unavoidable facts that support both the rising need and value of Questians in society today.

I realize that at this juncture, you may be asking yourself, is this possible? Before you turn the page, ponder the plausibility of the following:

“Once barriers — which consist in a sense only in man’s ignorance of the possible — are torn down, they are not easily set up again.”[x]

Stay with me. Click HERE to begin reading Chapter Two of The Questians.

NOTES – Chapter 1 – The ‘Q’ Gene – Chapter Header Quote

[i] Bronowski, Jacob – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, Yale University Press, Copyright © 1978 by Yale University. P. 109.

NOTES – Chapter 1 – The ‘Q’ Gene

[i] McGinn, Colin Mindsight – Image, Dream, Meaning Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Copyright © 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, p. 121

[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Medina, John Brain Rules – 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School, Pear Press Seattle, WA Copyright © 2008 by John J. Medina, p. 3.

[v] Ibid – p. 269

[vi] Ibid pp. 264-265

[vii] Ibid pp.271.

[viii] Taylor, Kathleen, Marienau, Catherine and Fidler, Morris Developing Adult Learners – Strategies for Teachers and Trainers, Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint San Francisco, CA Copyright © 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 13.

[ix] Pink, Daniel H. DRIVE – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books, A Member of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2009 by Daniel H. Pink, pp. 2-3 – citing the work of Harry F. Harlow, Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin.

[x] Cooper Ramo, Joshua The Age of the Unthinkable – Why The New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It Copyright © 2009 by Joshua Cooper Ramo – Little, Brown and Company New York, NY). P. 96.

]]> http://www.billdahl.net/articles/the-questians-chapter-1-the-q-gene/feed/ 0 http://www.billdahl.net/articles/the-questians-foreword-by-bill-dahl/ http://www.billdahl.net/articles/the-questians-foreword-by-bill-dahl/#comments Sat, 21 May 2011 23:51:13 +0000 bill http://www.billdahl.net/?p=2847 Foreword

by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved 2011

The Questians – a generative metaphor

Listen….you can hear it everywhere. America is suffering through an unusually difficult era. The Economist says most people will acquire economic resources and influence through the use of brainpower.[i] Fareed Zakaria writes the 63% of Americans are of the opinion they cannot maintain their current standard of living. Zakaria says the can-do country has become convinced it can’t.[ii] He claims “the country seems unready for the kind of radical adaptation it needs.”[iii] Ariana Huffington opines, “Now, more than ever, we must mine the most under-utilized leadership resource available to us: ourselves.” [iv] Princeton’s Nobel Prize winning economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman flatly declares that “we’ve already seen the consequences of playing it safe, and waiting for recovery to happen all by itself: it’s landed us in what looks increasingly like a permanent state of stagnation and high unemployment. It’s time to admit that what we have now isn’t a recovery, and do whatever we can to change that situation.”[v] President Obama has said, “This nation wasn’t built on greed. It wasn’t built on reckless risk. It wasn’t built on short-term gains and short-sighted policies. It was forged on stronger stuff, by bold men and women who dared to invent something new or improve something old – who took big chances on big ideas, who believed that in America all things are possible.”[vi]

Needless to say, the pundits are pelting a torrent of opinions and perspectives defining the dimensions of the challenges America and Americans are currently muddling through. No, this writing is not going to be another treatise on the problems. I’m going to focus on what I firmly believe is a both a unique and fundamentally important dimension of the solution.

A generative metaphor – The Questians – provides the structure to integrate frames of reference and perspectives using a multi-disciplinary approach (including humor). A generative metaphor is typically characterized as the bridge to integrate frames of reference or perspectives from one domain to another. As one author says, “Creative leaps are fundamentally a navigation problem. Don’t waste time inventing – it’s out there somewhere; just find it and integrate it.”[vii] The Questians as a generative metaphor is relied upon as both the process and the framework to define prospective solutions to the current reality in a new, more constructive way – “an organic connection from what you can see to what you can’t see.”[viii]

Believe me…it’s personal. Read on.

Click Here to begin reading the Introduction to The Questians…

NOTES:

[i] The Economist – January 22^nd 2011 – A Special Report on Global Leaders, January 22^nd 2011 , p. 10.

[ii] Zakaria, Fareed Restoring The American Dream, TIME Magazine, November 1, 2010, p. 30.

[iii] Zakaria, Fareed Are America’s Best Days Behind Us? TIME Magazine, March 3, 2011 – http://www.fareedzakaria.com/home/Articles/Entries/2011/3/3_Are_Americas_Best_Days_Behind_Us.html

[iv] Huffington, Ariana Third World America – How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class And Betraying The American Dream, Crown Publishers New York, NY Copyright © 2010 by Arianna Huffington, p. 171

[v] Krugman, Paul The New York Times, August 26, 2010 This is Not a Recovery, an op-ed appeared in print on August 27, 2010, on page A21 of the New York edition.

[vi] President Barak Obama – Speech at the  kick-off the Educate to Innovate campaign, November 23, 2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/educate-innovate

[vii] Ogle, Richard  Smart World – Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas - Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA USA. Copyright © 2007 Richard Ogle

[viii] Peterson, Eugene H. “Practice Resurrection,” Wm. B. Eerdsman Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge U.K.  Copyright © 2010 by Eugene H. Peterson, p. 1.

From internet and media guru Jeff Jarvis (see http://Buzzmachine.com) comes a critically important work. The World Economic Forum in  Davos named Jarvis as one of the 100 worldwide media leaders in 2007 and 2008. Jarvis was formerly the founding editor and creator of Entertainment Weekly. In his spare time (?) he is a faculty member in the Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.

This is not the typical chronology and/or biographical approach to Google by someone granted access to either the Company or its inner circle ( See Ken Auletta’s “Googled: The End Of The world As We Know It” for that sort of treatment. My review of Auletta’s book is here. ). In the Acknowledgments and Disclosures section on the final page of Jarvis’ book “WWGD” (p.246) he makes his vantage point very clear when he states plainly:

“I am grateful for Google’s existence, its lessons, and its inspiration – not to mention Marissa Mayer’s quotable advice online. But I want to note that I did not seek access to Google for this book because I wanted to judge it and learn from it at a distance. My admiration of Google, then, does not spring from any relationship with the company but from its incredible example.”

This book is really about Google’s worldview and how they apply (have applied) those beliefs, attitudes and values from the company’s genesis, its development, and the initiatives it has (may have) in its sights in the future. Yet, worldviews don’t reside in the “head” of a company – they inhabit (in varying degrees) the soul, mind and spirit of the founders, managers, engineers – each and every employee and stakeholder invested in this enterprise…and guess what…that includes you as well. As Jarvis succinctly summarizes:

“They see a different world than the rest of us and make different decisions as a result, decisions that make no tense under old rules of old industries that are now blown apart thanks to these new ways and new thinkers.” P.4. “Create and manage abundance rather than control scarcity – as ever, that is the Google worldview.“ P. 163

How? How did Google lead us all to the baptismal fount to become unwitting, duly confirmed disciples of their services. Answer? They didn’t. We did it to each other. Listen to Jarvis:

“It is because the single greatest transformative power of the internet and Google has little to do with technology or media or even business. It’s about people and making new connections among them. It all comes back to relationships.” P.22. Today’s web 2.0 method for growth is to forgo paying for marketing and instead create something so great that users distribute it – it goes viral. Pp.31-32. Google distributes itself. It puts its ads on millions of web pages it does not own, earning billions of dollars for those sites and for itself. It offers scores of widgets-boxes of free, constantly updated content or functionality anyone can add to a web site or desktop: everything from weather to cartoons, chat to calendars, sports scores to photos, recipes to games, quotes to coupons. These widgets are filled with other companies’ content; Google merely created the platform to distribute it. Yahoo, AOL, and other content sites should have created such distribution platforms years ago, Cutting themselves up and offering their wealth of content and functionality to others to distribute and build upon. They didn’t think that way. They didn’t think distributed. They wanted to get us to come to them. pp.36-37.

Yep…we led one another to become disciples of Google, based upon our craving for relationships, connectivity and our penchant for sharing with one another.  As Jeff Jarvis writes: “Learn this lesson from Google, which spends next to nothing on advertising. It became the fastest growing company in the history of the world without marketing. It grew thanks to its friends, not through ads.” P.46

The depth and breadth of Jarvis’ insights regarding the current state and future of organization development/entrpreneurship/innovation are too numerous and valuable to attempt to enumerate here. However, the following are a few of my favorites:

You must realize that your crowd - your users, customers, voters, Students, audience, neighbors – is wise. The next questions should be: How do you capture and act on that wisdom? How do you listen? How do you enable them to share their wisdom with each other and with you? How do you help them make you smarter (and why should they bother)? Do you have the systems in place to hear? Do you have the culture in place to act on what you hear?” p. 88

“But the truth about truth is itself counterintuitive: Corrections do not diminish credibility. Corrections enhance credibility. Standing up and admitting your errors makes you more believable; it gives your audience faith that you will right your future wrongs…Being willing to be wrong is a key to innovation.” P. 91.

Google’s lesson is clear: Make innovation your business. P. 114

I absolutely cherished Jarvis’ comments about education. I would be remiss if I didn’t share my three favorites here. Listen to this:

“I imagine a new educational ecology where students may take courses from anywhere and instructors may select any students, where courses are collaborative and public, where creativity is nurtured as Google nurtures it, where making mistakes well is valued over sameness and safety, where education continues long past age 21, where tests and degrees matter less than one’s own portfolio of work, where the gift economy may turn anyone with knowledge into teachers, where the skills of research and reasoning and skepticism are valued over the skills of memorization and calculation, and where universities teach an abundance of knowledge to those who want it rather than manage a scarcity of seats in a class. Pp.210-211

“Would we be forcing young people to go through 18, 16, or even 12 years of school – trying to get them all to think the same way-before they make things? Instead of the perennial call to subject our youth to mandatory national service – how’s that for a way to squander a precious resource? Shouldn’t we instead be helping them find and feed their muses?” P. 212

“Why are we still teaching students to memorize facts when facts are available through search? Memorization is not as vital a discipline as ulfilling curiosity with research and reasoning when students recognize what they don’t know, form questions, seek answers, and learn how to judge them and their sources.” Pp. 215-216.

What are all the “Google’s Rules” Jarvis discusses throughout the book.?Well, I’ve referred to several here but you’re just going to have to immerse yourself in this work just as I did to garner the spoecifics and appropriate appreciation.

Jeff Jarvis’ ending touches on a critically important subject, that you must not rush over. It’s about creativity. It’s poignant:

The internet doesn’t make us more creative. Instead, it enables what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits. That takes creation out of the proprietary ands of the supposed creative class. Internet curmudgeons argue that Google and the internet bring society to ruin because they rob the creative class of its financial support and exclusivity: its pedestal. But internet triumphalists, including me, argue that the internet opens up creativity past one-size-fits-all, mass measurements and priestly definitions of quality and lets us not only find what we like but also find people who like what we do. The internet kills the mass, once and for all. With that comes the death of mass economics and mass media. I don’t lament their passing. Pp.239-240.

“There is  an abundance of talent and a limitless will to create, but they have been tamped down by an  educational system that insists on sameness,  starved by a mass economic system that rewarded only a few giants, and discouraged by a critical system that anointed a closed creative class. These enemies of mass creativity turned abundance into scarcity. Google and the internet reversed that flow. Now talent of many descriptions and levels can express itself and grow. We want to create and we want to be generous with our creations. We will get the attention we deserve. That means crap will be ignored. It just depends on your definition crap.” P. 240.

Jeff Jarvis is a talent and a mind to touch base with regularly. This book, his first, is a superb example of the “abundance of talent and a limitless will to create” that Google has had an invisible hand in creating.

Get this book! Savor it. Discuss Jarvis’ observations and insights with others. Allow the invisible hand to have its way with you. You’ll be delighted you did.

“innovate our way to new possibilities that right now seem unimaginable. The longer we wait to set out on such a strategic path though, the deeper the pail out of which we will have to climb.” (1)

Think about it…

Directions

(1) Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat & Crowded- Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America, Copyright © 2008 Farrar, Straus & Giroux New York, NY p. 49.

Scott Jeffrey‘s work, Creativity Revealed – Discovering The Source of Inspiration clearly stands above the rest. The sheer magnitude of voices he invites into his discussion about this topic provide a flavor that is both unique and enduring. However, it’s not overwhelming. The appendices to the volume are robust and incredibly beneficial.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Scott Jeffrey:

“The sun is always shining, we need only remove the clouds.” P. 132

“For the light to enter, the mind must wander.” P. 131

“creativity is our natural state, not an anomaly that arises from time to time.” P. 131

“The true Student can be an expert in his field or a master at his craft; however, he still possesses the willingness to grow, a gratitude for his gifts, and a sense of profound humility for his own ignorance.” P. 104.

“Thoughts , as it turns out, are energy. Each thought has its own vibrational frequency. As human beings, living in the physical world, we tend to ignore the formless. If you can’t see it and can’t measure it, it’s not real, the material reductionist believes.” P. 84.

“Whether to create that which is heavenly or hellish is the constant human option.” P. ii.

This book serves as a reference guide to future exploration of the topic of creativity. Buy it. Devour it. Refer to it. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!

This particular book is one of a series entitled The New Consciousness Reader edited/authored by reputable experts in the fields of healing, spiritual growth, personal development and psychology.

This particular book is an absolutely compelling compilation of both original and classic writings by an assemblage of Creators writing about Creating – Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind. Frank Barron is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is known as a leading expert on the study of creativity. Dr. Montuori is associate professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Anthea Barron lives in Santa Cruz. Sections of this work include The Uncovered Heart, The Opened Mind, The Web of Imagination, The Creative Ecology, The Dedication to Mastery, and The Courage to Go Naked. Authors and authorized pieces include 39 individual readings from the likes of Laurence Olivier, Frank Zappa, Igor Stavinsky, da Vinci, Tony Kushner, Maurice Sendak, Michael Focault, Carl Jung, Rainer Maria Rilke, Henry Miller, Annie Dillard and William Butler Yeats — to name only a few. Each section contains an important orienting introduction written by Dr. Alfonso.

I adored the splendid variety contained in this volume. Admittedly, some of the names of the authors whose pieces were shared here, I have never heard of them before. It is the diversity of the insights, stories and thoughts that truly made me come back for more each day, until I had devoured the entire volume. I grew by reading this book. I’m certain you will too.

In the introduction, Frank Barrone writes: “creativity is a quest for meaning. It is an attempt to penetrate the mystery of the self, and perhaps the even greater mystery of Being. The very origin of existence is open to creative exploration, and the science of this century has posed new questions, large and small – intriguing , challenging, important questions.” (p.2). The manner in which we humans live out our creative potential is aptly portrayed in the content of this volume – necessarily inhabited by novelists, musicians, composers, poets, dancers, physicists, scientists, playwrights and the like.

Creativity is a gift to the human species that can be developed – even taught, as Barrone says: “Creativity is a specifically human resource. It is part of the general human potential, something we can cultivate in ourselves if we set out to. It is also something that can be nurtured in others who are close to us and perhaps in our care. Teachers can help foster creativity in students, parents in children, and children in parents! It can work both ways, and it can be an important part of the mutuality that helps make all of us stronger.” (p.5).

Here are some other particularly poignant excerpts I truly appreciated:

“The power to create is potential in all of us, and that we should express it in small ways if great and grand ways are beyond our means.” Frank Barrone  - P. 12

“Without our creative dissidents, where would we be?” Frank Barrone – p. 13.

“The creator creates and is created by the creating.” Pamela Travers – creator of Mary Poppins – p. 36.

“You’re a craftsman – essentially your job is to be a vehicle for other people.” Anna Halprin – dancer – p. 46

“When we think of the creative mind, we think of the generative mind, full of ideas and brilliant new insights. But the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. It is a mind that is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world.” Alfonso Montuori P. 57

“The opened mind thrives on difference and remains open to the contradictory.” Alfonso Montuori p. 57

“important inventions almost always cross the lines of disciplines. You don’t develop an invention  by having one hundred guys working for five years to produce an invention. You have one guy who may be flaky in his field and who jumps around and puts shit together in unlikely ways and sees something its hard to imagine.” Kary Mullis – molecular biologist – p. 70.

“Moving between fields is the way to be creative. Keep your fingers in a lot of pies. I do because I’m curious. Kary Mullis – molecular biologist – p. 73.

“To settle upon what one knows and act upon it and stick to the decision that has been made – This sort of thing is very necessary for other purposes, but this is the very thing which must be thrown aside when one is trying to make a new creative step.” J.G. Bennett – mystic and philosopher P. 77.

“for something to enter, a place must be made for it.” J.G. Bennett – mystic and philosopher P. 79.

“Words are powerful beyond our knowledge, certainly. And they are beautiful. Words are intrinsically powerful. And there is magic in that. Words come from nothing into being. They are created in the imagination  and given life on the human voice. We do not know what we can do with words. But as long as there are those among us who try to find out, literature will be secure; literature will remain a thing worthy of our highest level of human being.” – N. Scott Momaday – novelist and poet – pp. 160-161.

“What I want to see is the demise of fundamentalism in favour of pragmatism. By fundamentalism I mean any philosophy that thinks it has the final and unique answer, that believes there is one essential plan underlying the workings of the universe, and seeks to make sure everyone else gets persuaded to get in line with it. By pragmatism, I mean improvisation: the belief that there are many approaches, that whatever works in the light of our present knowledge is a good course of action, and that what is the best course of action for us, here and now, might not be for someone else, there or then.” Brian Eno – music producer – in Why World Music? P. 167

“The creative process involves a tension between opposites, and nowhere is that tension more apparent than in the need to balance freedom and exploration with the disciplined fine-tuning of our craft. Creativity is a gift, some say, but not a gift that survives without practice.” Alfonso Montuori – author – p. 171.

“This guest (‘inspiration’) does not always respond to the first invitation.” Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky – composer – p. 181.

“Thus, what concerns us here is not imagination in itself, but rather creative imagination: the faculty that helps us to pass from the level of the of conception to the level of realization.” Igor Stravinsky – composer – P. 191

“Whatever field of endeavour has fallen to our lot, we are called upon not to cogitate, but to perform.” Igor Stravinsky – composer – P. 190.

“Creativity involves a degree of risk taking, if only because we have invested so much in our product that we do not want to see it flop. We have pinned our hopes on our creative ideas, and we want some degree of recognition and reward, whether social or financial. The moral is, get out there and do it! Take it off! In the realization of the dream is self-realization, in its impact is its proof, in our creations we complete ourselves.” Alfonso Montuori – Author – p. 205 – Introduction to the section entitled “The Courage to Go Naked.”

I truly adored all the diverse, nutritious insights in this book, only a small handful of which I have shared above. I recommend it.

Warning: You cannot read this book and come away uninspired. This is a truly wonderful read. The impact the book had on me was to continue to write in the margins — ideas that seemed to bubble up as I walked through this journey with Joey Reiman. Need inspiration? Read this book!

The following are some of my favorite excerpts:

“Ideas are what matters most in business, in life, and in society.” P. 12

“We live at a time when creative people can transform cultures in ways that used to be unimaginable.” P.14

I’ve got a bunch of flags on my boat. But there ain’t no white flags.” P.24.

“THE EMPIRES OF THE FUTURE ARE THE EMPIRES OF THE MIND.” — Winston Churchill.

“Lazy marketing creates a monologue with customers while an experience creates a dialogue.” P.60

“The best way to create a high-quality idea is to create a high-quantity of ideas. And the best way to do this is to think. Thinking takes time, so the longest stage of the ideation process is incubation.” P. 64

“If you want to find the answer, ask as many questions as possible.” P.66

ld, we  need to think in a nonlinear fashion because change is nonlinear.” P. 109

“Bastions of procedure create idea anorexia — thoughts that think they are big are really small.” P.110

“Anyone afraid of destroying the old to get to the new never will be able to achieve a worthwhile, breakthrough innovation.” P. 110

“The culture says, “Don’t think outside the square, or you may find yourself outside the company.” This is the kind of culture that rewards stodgy thinking and dull, safe ideas. At the same time, it strangles great thinking.” P.110

“Companies and environments that have a certain way of doing things – that are stuck in a rut of routine thinking – will undo any possibility of having breakthrough ideas.” P. 110

“Big ideas don’t appear, they evolve.” P. 66

“The biggest hurdle the human race faces now is finding a way to create as dynamic and nurturing an environment as possible on a global scale. The scary thing is we need to do it now more than ever before. The encouraging thing is we can do it now more than ever before.” P. 188

“The more we’re idea driven, entrepreneurial, open to opportunity, creating ideas, reinventing ourselves, the more we grow. The more we stifle ideas, sit on our lead, repeat ourselves, depend on a single model, the more we stagnate.” P. 189

“The inescapable truth of the twenty-first century will be that stupidity and stagnation will exact a price we can no longer afford to pay.” p.190

“Imagine children being taught that it’s more important to question than to provide an answer.” P. 191

Joey Reiman lives what he writes. Required reading for creative folks — once a year for life.

Sometimes, language blows my brain up – blows my hair back. I am going to get to an extensive review of this book here in a few days:  Smart World – Breakthrough Creativity and the new Science of Ideas by Richard Ogle – Harvard Business School Press Boston, MA USA Copyright © 2007 by Richard Ogle.

Until I do, blow your hair back with the essence of the following excerpt:

Imagination is not the poor cousin of reason, trafficking in desire-driven fantasy, dreaming, and delusion, but rather, as Fauconnier and Turner show, the very basis on which intelligent, sense-making thought builds. Independently, the philosopher Colin McGinn has reached a similar conclusion in his recent book Mindsight, arguing that without the faculty of imagination, there could be no thought, rational or otherwise. To think intelligently is to create webs of meaning about how the world might be, and this is the work of imagination. Reason follows, creating the rational links and chains of inference that validate and extend our knowledge of reality. Fundamentally we are, as McGinn asserts, Homo imaginans. P. 72

Photography by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved – 2010

Photography by Bill Dahl - All Rights Reserved

Jacob Bronowski – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, Yale University Press Copyright © 1978 by Yale University, p. 123

“First, everyone should be a heretic. Our times demand it. These are not times for conventional wisdom. New ideas for new times are needed now. All around us imaginative people are rethinking and re-imagining the possibilities of what it means to be human.”

Burke, Spencer and Taylor, Barry A Heretics Guide to Eternity, Copyright © 2006 by Spencer Burke. JOSSEY-BASS Publishers, A Wiley Imprint P. 225