Consider for a moment that everything around us is designed. Someone, somewhere, shaped each aspect of the created world—sometimes with and sometimes without intention. Either way, the result is what we call the world.
Steve Jobs said it like this…
“Life can be so much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people who were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
When you think of it this way, creativity is not a process the reserve of the creative types. It is a way of being that we all embody to different degrees. To make anything in the world—whether a spreadsheet, an email, a meal, a garden, or a conversation—is a creative act, and when we do, creativity is at play.
So to be human is to be creative. Creativity then, has much to do with purpose, meaning, morality and even mythology (for are not these deeply human?). Often though, creativity and design are reduced to imply only a thin veneer of enterprising capitalist coercion (ROI! CAC! LTV! ulgh!). But we must not make that mistake. There is much more at stake.
Come join me as we think carefully about some of these ideas. We’d better, because our ideas will make the world.
