Imagination, Creativity, and Change 2 – reframing society 2

Our culture has all these people throughout history whom we revere for their creativity and inventiveness.  The names Gutenberg, Tesla, Edison, Carver, and Bell, are but a few who made great technological changes for society.  While today we might use names like Zuckerberg or Musk to show how creativity is changing society, the impression we get is that creativity is reserved for those brilliant few who invented the right things at the right time.  If you ponder the U.S. patents office files you would realize that great inventions are occurring all the time.  Many times these inventions are the right thing at the right time but for one reason or another they fail to launch, so to speak.  One of history’s more recent genius was Nikola Tesla.  He was well ahead of Edison at the beginning of the 20^th century, but he had a moral sentiment and his financial backers destroyed his career.  Think about how often we as individuals get a good idea and how it is crushed at its inception.  It’s the way our society seems to work.  Creativity that changes things the elites would rather not change is quickly squashed.  In everyday work life, if you have an idea that you cherish as though it was your baby.  You decide to take it to your boss; what can happen?  First your boss might say, what a wonderful baby and take it from you and send you on your way.  The boss then takes credit for your baby.  Any further ideas you have might remain just ideas after that kind of rejection.  Another scenario is that your boss says, what a wonderful baby.  Let’s show it to my bosses and show them what a creative person you are.  Our system really just wants worker bees to behave themselves and get things done.  In a first blog post, I said how do you keep a person a slave to the system?  You don’t tell them they’re a work-slave, and you ridicule anything that is outside the box.  I loved the cartoon strip, Dilbert.  Anyone who has ever worked in ‘cubeland’ will know where Dilbert got his inspiration.  Without an outlet for our creativity (and we all have creative ideas if allowed to bring them forth) we languish in jobs an careers that eventually make us into stressed out automotons.

So, how do we change the system.  Sometimes, it is as simple as having the courage to step outside the box.  Some 30 years ago, I attended a lecture about creativity.  The speaker brought a big long box that was laid on a table at the front of the theater.  After his talk, he added a short story about his son, who had graduated from college with a degree in geology and metallurgy.  This son went to work for a knife making factory.  While there he had an idea to create a line of products that would make a lot of money for the factory.  He went to his boss and said he had a great idea – the response?  Without even hearing the idea, the boss told him he wasn’t paid to have ideas, he was paid to work and should get back to the shop floor.  The son quit his job and using all the knowledge he had learned from working on the shop floor of the knife factory, opened up his own small foundry to manufacture his idea.  The speaker then opened up the box and raised a four-foot long gleaming, jewel hilted broad sword.  The son was now a celebrated sword artist that sold his craft worldwide.  When it comes to sustainable living, there is a lot of creativity about for what a future sustainable society might look like.  Alas, what I see are a lot of experts that can’t seem to go beyond their own expertise, or have extreme criticisms for anything that seems too different from what we currently experience.

My friend Bill Scott’s blog recently had a post: “March 7, 2018 –  Green Stories is a writing competition about what a sustainable society might be like… I was immediately tempted to nominate John Huckle’s ‘Bedford 2045 ‘which I mentioned the other day.  Surely there are no better examples around, I thought, but then I saw that they have to be unpublished.  Such a pity as it would have romped home…. I’d say it will be tricky to judge if realism is one of the criteria.” Obviously Bill is no fan of a lifestyle that is more communal and integrative.  I would diverge from my friend Bills perspective here!  I interpret that Bill works on a reform mindset.  That he would like to change society slowly through better education and laws. Reform definition dictionary: the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, the amendment of conduct, belief, etc.  I work on a radical transformational mindset: Transformation definition dictionary: change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose, to change in condition, nature, or character; convert, change into another substance; transmute.  When we try to create change, what happens is that reformists want us to trend softly and not stray too far outside the box.  I suppose the belief is that the elites will suddenly develop moral sentiments and start to work for a better society – although the notion of anything spiritual (where everything is seen as connected) would not be a part of this new world order.   As a transformationist, I want to break the box apart and create something new that works for everyone – something beyond current civilization and hierarchical control.

Remember, I have railed against a ‘deep state’ control with all of its secrets withheld from ‘we’ the masses (the 99%).  I read something recently in the mainstream press of all places that talked about how ‘disclosure’ of many secrets is coming about in many ways – think Wikileaks and the Snowden releases.  For instance, the CIA ran a secret program under the name MK ULTRA, which would have remained secret had it not been for an accidental disclosure bringing it to light – (bringing you paranoia in the name of national security).  Sorry – this post was more about poking you in the eye to break you out of whatever complacency you might have.  There is a solution.  We teach for isolation.  We design in isolation.  We live as isolated individuals that have a compartmentalized family/social structure.  Our whole educational system is built on an archaic model of the industrial revolution and the dissolution of community.  The goal is to have us all reliant on the state and less and less reliant on each other.  After all, the hierarchy would have us believe, “A friend in need is a nuisance.”  Anybody not preaching mainstream ideas and knowledge is a wacko to be discredited.  Anyone trying to be creative and or change the system from one that is sanctioned by the hierarchy is to be marginalized.  Anything that is against the mainstream is conspiracy theory (see earlier posts).  We do need a change in education – more about how to critically think for ourselves and not simply what to think.

What are some simple things to do besides educate yourself about changing the simulation we currently survive within.

• Connect Sustainable Living to what’s happening in real neighborhoods to reduce psychological distance. The media would have you believe sustainability is a big picture thing for governments to resolve, when it is a very personal change that is needed.  Emphasize the moral and ethical aspects for this transformation.
• Make action for Sustainable Living a group, then a neighborhood experience, to develop integrative community with social norms that benefit the community and everyone within it.
• To create buy-in, talk and emphasize what gains and benefits you are getting. Avoid talking about what is being lost (the current dystopia) as this ties into entrenched belief systems.  Help people see how SL is a better way to live.
• Find people who think like you (cultural creatives – see earlier post). Avoid the naysayers – they’ll always have reasons to stay in the rut – mostly fear based.  Talk about actions that will work to prevent ‘environmental melancholia’ and produce hope for change that is based on newly forming beliefs of what can happen.
• Review your own spiritual biography – what do you feel connected to and why? What places bring you peace and harmony?  What kinds of people do you love being around that bring you a sense of fulfillment.  What do you perceive your true purpose to be?  Write it all down regardless of how farfetched it may seem.  It is a way of delving into your souls yearnings!  Don’t underestimate what a creative person you are.  Your imagination is a channel for how things get done and how your beliefs transform your actions.