Posts Tagged "technology"

All Is Creative: Creative Vision

Posted by Jason Fonceca on Jan 15, 2009 in Conscious Creation, Life Coaching, Life Purpose, Personal Growth | 3 comments

People do not generally create without a purpose. They don’t tend to think "Hey, let me invent a new water purifier!" completely at random, nor do they create a master-piece, labour-of-love artwork "just because." Let’s take a look at all the brilliant advances and creations humanity has brought to life, and to keep
this article at a readable length, I’m only going to pull examples from recent years.

The first one that comes to mind, for me personally, is Google. Google has done more to advance and unify the world than most people realize. By putting the collective information resources of all of us at the fingertips of anyone motivated and with access to the internet, they have subtly but powerfully fed so many creators and aided in many of their creations since the company’s inception. Not only that, but whenever they release a new product it reliably has an abundance of design concepts contained within it that are exceptionally improved from the mean, pushing the boundaries of what’s already been done. What was Google’s initial purpose? It may have started at "being the best search on the internet", which is quite a clear goal, and they proceeded to take steps to make the goal a reality. Lately, it feels like their purpose has changed to "index all information in existence" or "take over the world," or "keep creating awesome things" all of which are more ambitious than the "best search" goal, but equally as clear, and from that clear vision we see creation after creation springing up from Google.

A second example might be cellphones. An impressive and brilliant technology, cellphones have revolutionized nearly every aspect of society, especially business and inter-personal relationships. This one is a relatively hot-button topic, and I’m not saying there aren’t upsides and downsides to their advent, but it’d be difficult to argue that it is not a powerful creation. What was the original purpose that drove creation of the cell phone? Well Martin Cooper, now 70, wanted "people to be able to carry their phones with them anywhere." It’s a simple enough goal, a clear goal, and Martin made it happen, in turning spurring all kinds of advancements from others on his initial idea, binging us to where we are today. Consider some interesting small rewards from this creation – How cool would it feel to, when asked what you do, reply "Oh, I invented
the cell phone."

I’m going to deviate a little bit for this next example. Let’s look at the song Umbrella by Rihanna. Is he serious?, I can feel some of you thinking. I am. It is an impressively catchy song, that has without a doubt touched many, many people. Tremendous amounts of people have an opinion about it, are inspired by it, or are inspired against it. Not only has it changed Rihanna’s life, but it has actually been a huge factor in launching other people’s careers. People remix her, collaborate with her, and compete with her. There is a massive amount of creations and human activity surrounding her like a hurricane. Marié Digby is a stunningly talented, joyous, and beautiful songstress, who can attribute much of her renown to her own talents and as well as their combination with, and inspiration by, Rihanna.

I’m not going to debate here whether the song is a creation of Corporate America, or Rihanna, or Jay-Z, or some producer or whoever – I just want to acknowledge its contribution to the world, and whether its aim was to move and affect many people or simply get Rihanna marketed and people buying is not really relevant. There is an underlying reason of some kind for the song’s existence, a purpose.

That purpose comes from having creative ‘vision.’ What is vision? I’ll attempt to explain, but please be aware language, (a linear, rational system) may not be adequate to describe/convey what I intend.

In very simple terms, every action or inaction is a step towards or away from a goal.

That goal, is the creative vision.

That goal can be well-defined and clear, thus making the steps towards it well-defined and clear (and easier!), or that goal can be hazy and vague, and consequently the steps will be more haphazard, hit-and-miss, and awkward.

The degree of clarity of a goal, is equivalent to the effectiveness of one’s creative vision.

It may not appear to be a clean, scientific proof, but I challenge you not to observe/experience this principle of creative vision at work in your own life.

The thing is, often times things which affect the clarity of one’s vision and the definitions of one’s goal can be a bit surreal and seem ‘hard to duplicate.’

Can you remember seeing someone spin their wheels, avoiding their own strengths, talents and inspiration and instead trying one failed endeavour after another, simply because they were confused and unclear on what they wanted from their life? I personally went through a phase like this, and while I wouldn’t consider it that time itself recommended… I do feel it guided me towards a clearer vision, which is most definitely fun.

Or can you remember a time in your own life where you went to a rock climbing mountain retreat, a local spa, or a vacation abroad and came back revitalized with some of the best, most creative ideas you’ve had for your life, relationships or business, ever? If not, would you consider taking one to see if it affects your creative vision?

These things can seem coincidental, but there is an analyzable history of reports of these types of intense phases/experiences aiding in people’s creative vision and productivity throughout history. Possibly there is an explanation for this phenomenon using psychology if you’re interested, but regardless, intense emotion, catharsis, meditation, prayer, etc. all often strongly and directly relate to one’s creative vision. I’m not saying its necessary to embrace religion or spirituality, but I am suggesting that from the majority of accounts available, it might be worth opening up to.

Still, vision can arise from something simple, like a pure desire to help people. The way it hits any given person is difficult to pin down, its a fairly personal thing, but a really good start is knowing what you want, and then fleshing that out, writing it down, developing it, and clarifying it.

Try it, you may be surprised at how effective it is.

As a finale I’m going to address a couple truly beautiful creations, sticking with the technology theme because I feel its one of the clearest, easiest-to-shar fields in which to see creative vision. The first is Photosynth, a program which revolutionizes the effect of every picture anyone has ever placed on the net. There is a eye-popping demo on TED TV below:

Blaise Aguera y Arcas – Photosynth – The creation of modular, navigable, metaverses from the collective image memory of everyone around the globe (drawing from flickr and others.) This is truly a must see, it will blow your mind.

Maybe you can appreciate the massive scope and ambition of this project, maybe you are drawn the technical execution involved in it, or its attention to detail, or its socially applicable aspects, or its artistic merit, or maybe you simply like having a place for your photos to be even more meaningful than they are singly. Or maybe something else, Blaise is spear-heading an endeavour that is, to me, completely riveting and wonderful.

Another project of vision is the Ubiquity Browser Plug-In. Is it just a simple plug-in? Yes and no. Ubiquity is in its very early stages, but its vision of unifying and simplifying the web is absolutely beautiful, and as we can see by the prototype, coming along swimmingly. It goes a long way to truly having the world at one’s fingertips. Check it out.

That is some serious creative vision.

I’d like to finish with a call to everyone reading to expand your vision, raise yourselves, and aim higher – musicians, inventors, writers, athletes… I can’t wait to see what you all have in store, or even what I’ve got in store for myself!

Question? Comment? Already have a vision? I’d love to hear about it.
Take care