Creativity in the Context of Sustainability
Creating something new which did not exist before takes much more human potential than simple reproduction of things. Humanity cannot move forward and cannot survive without people who are generating new ideas and inventing new things. Everything manmade is created by inventors, from cave man rock-hammer and stick-lever to every contemporary life feature. Superior human potential is the most valuable treasure of society, and at the same time people with high creativity abilities are a very disadvantaged minority group in society in every country. Society functions are oriented on reproduction activities, and no one makes any room for something which did not exist before. People who are in charge of distribution of social-economical benefits don’t realize that gifted people often need help from society to be able to make society benefit from their talents.
There are lots of nonprofits and social movements running different fundraising activities for many other groups in the population but not for talented individuals who are not affiliated with certain groups. Society has succeeded in human potential development for gifted and talented kids of all ages in public and private schools and after school programs but nobody cares what happens when those kids grow up and get jobs. Most likely they will be using very little of their human potential, and most likely would not be able to use it in their spare time, either. It’s wonderful if society is able to help people who cannot help themselves – mentally and physically disabled, ethically disabled prisoners, sick or starving people, etc. Nobody realizes that a number of gifted people is socially and economically disabled.
Economy evolves around reproduction of old ideas and implementations of new ones, designing and manufacturing things based on them, so implementers get the money but not the creators of the ideas. General public cares about getting good fruit, farmers care about growing fruit trees, but no one thinks that fruit and trees were brought to life by a mystery of photosynthesis which everyone takes for granted, just like the mystery of how new ideas are come to gifted people.
Test results of Russian psychologist V. Druzhinin (2001) showed that only internal motivation for exploration of the world works for creative people, and external motivation does not work for them as much as for non-creative ones. A set of personal qualities which provide for creativity do not easily go with the set of personal qualities which provides for social-economical success. For instance, a scientist always faces a problem of choosing between “developing a science” and “developing a career in science”. Attempts of combining the nature of creativity and social skills is often harmful for creativity. Creative people are not necessary introverts, socially skilled people are not necessary extraverts but certainly those natural qualities can contribute to the development of certain kinds of social behavior and creativity. To be able to generate new ideas a person needs to be able to disconnect from regular life routines and values in the local community which often makes creative people different from others. Their “mind antennas” need to be highly sensitive and highly sympathetic to be able to get in tune with the entire universe and catch new insights from the infinite universal source. However those qualities also put them in a non-beneficial social position. No wonder that over the centuries many gifted people ended up being pushed aside by less ethical, less sensitive, and more socially advantaged “predators”. They often have strange personality features and interests which might not be understood in their local communities. They might not have enough leadership and great speaking skills to show off their abilities and achievements unless it is in the field of their gift. A good model of such an interaction between innovators and their communities can be found in “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull- a story” by Richard Bach (1970). In human history, many innovators were not accepted or were aggressively executed by their communities. A conservative community does not recognize and aggressively reacts to revolutionary changes of creativity. The highly ethical Jesus Christ was executed together with felons, “ethically disabled” people. It is a big mistake to judge gifted people only upon their “roots”; their communities, origins, and family members. Genetics and cultural environment always have an impact on a person, but much more impact comes from the mystery which is similar to photosynthesis, from the ability to generate new ideas “out of nothing”. Gifted individuals are connected to the universe and are included in much more circles and layers of information of their own world, which have a much greater influence on them than their families and communities. Soil and water are important in feeding roots for growing fruit but plants cannot go without sunshine which feeds leaves but not roots. However, there are many museums all over the world of gifted people who became famous. Historians and the general public cherish things at the places they live, information about people they communicated with, details of their biographies, but none of that can make them get closer to the mystery of creation. It would be much more efficient for them to look around for those not easily noticeable talents who are alive right now. Gifted people are eager to give to society, and sometimes even can do a lot for their communities in their own way. They only need to be helped properly and left alone without breaking them down. Their rights to choose the ways of their socio-economical interactions which are not harmful to their creativity should be appreciated by society. “No talent left behind!” is a policy which can contribute a great deal of sustainability to a society.
It would be interesting to find out the percentage of social survivors from this category of people, what part of them is able to find a job which uses a great deal of their creative abilities without prior family connections. Unfortunately, at the end of the 20th-beginning of 21st century the world is experiencing overproduction of educated and creative people in many countries without appropriate jobs for many of them. So many of them may be surviving economically but not socially.
A need for creativity is varied in different periods in society development. Unstable or new societies are looking for a balance and are more open to creative changes. They are more open for taking a risk of changes for reaching a better balance. At the same time their opportunities are more limited than in stable societies. A comparatively wealthy society is focused on keeping the established balance, conservative and not open to creative changes. Non-creative “reproductors” who can better help society to function in the established way become much more valuable than innovators. Revolutionary changes bring chances for establishing stability in unstable societies, and bring chances of losing stability in stable societies. However, because of the inertia of stability reproduction in a stable society, it becomes less sensitive to changes in life and does not recognize updates which need to be done in order to keep up with those changes. This eventually leads to a loss of stability. That’s why even stable societies should still value gifted and talented people as a “security alert” and a “rescue resource” for their stability. This inertia of reproduction can be recognized in contemporary human resource strategies, particularly in a choice of selection criteria for the management positions in social structures which are directed toward hiring reproductors but not creators.
Social and economical benefits are always limited. However it is possible to rearrange priorities in raising funds and granting benefits. Groups of people who can give society valuable help after they got helped must be on the top of the list. There is no need to make disadvantaged gifted people to go through a long process of applying for grants and fellowships, and compete with others who beat them with better social skills or family affiliations. The results of their work are the best criteria for grant selection. They have done their work while barely surviving in a severe socioeconomic climate in their societies. There is no doubt they will use this grant for doing more for humanity. They also need help with protection of their rights to their intellectual property. Talented people are a very special kind and need to be rescued so they would keep rescuing humanity.
Also, all new inventions need to be examined for sustainable functioning for environmental protection.
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