I AM MENTALLY SPENT on a sun-split day in Ireland, thinking about co-creating things in the verge of my virtual life.
I gained some inspiration from a Dashboard item that percolated onto my Dell laptop via Evelyn Rodriguez from Teilhard de Chardin.
"There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe."
The larger vision lies as close as the memories of my grandfather's creative floral arrangements and as far away as foreign voices 12 time zones away coming through Google Hangouts I share. I wander into those Hangouts because I've discovered a special serendipity with creativity. It's a creativity that runs counter to the masses flowing through Twitter. It's a creativity I've seen in Skunkworks while working with people who seek out clear space on project white boards.
Reading about Steve Jobs through the view penned by Walter Isaacson, I saw the origins of Steve's creativity as he wandered through faraway traditions. Years later, Steve could integrate into the mainstream consumer experience several snippets from perspectives he gained while walking the verges far from the fast track. I'm encountering some of those creative people in Hangouts that remind me of the wilderness of compartmentalised research cubicles where I started my working life in the 70s.
I will finish my working life in Ireland, looking younger than many of the fast-moving instructor pilots I once chased through footless halls of space. My life is much more grounded now that my head is out of the clouds. I've developed an appreciation for the land, perhaps an appreciation as keen as my great grandparents had when they scratched out their existence on the Iowa plains. With respect for the life they ploughed, I appreciate the significance of the verges in my life.
On the side of Irish roads, a verge marks the division between the soil and tarmacadam. In creative space on campus where a work, a verge demarcates rich ecosystems where two distinct forms meet with each other and begin to intermix. In a perfect creative space, we nurture verges of positive change by facilitating right and left brain students who can create jobs for themselves.
All people like myself have to do is help to set the stage so creative ideas can co-create.
It's a nice warm day outside. I'm going to pick some daisies.
Evelyn Rodriguez -- "It's a jungle out there...and the ecosystems they co-create", Crossroads Dispatches, May 23, 2012.
David Brooks (with more than 400 comments) -- "The Creative Monopoly", New York Times, April 23, 2012.
Sep Kamvar -- "Cyclicality: Missions and Metrics" in Farmer and Farmer, May 7, 2012.
Bernie Goldbach curates links about creativity.
