Articles
Four sources and representative excerpts that most closely align with my understanding of creativity, how it can be cultivated and why it’s so essential in our human development.
Some context on an Op-Ed I wrote in the Seattle Times about the impact of The Seattle Art Museum’s decisions in renovating its properties.
A call to embrace creativity with a collective consciousness or a moral anchor. “Creativity is our ability to imagine and bring into being the material and immaterial worlds. And when we are more creative, we can access the seemingly impossible. So it’s beautiful like the Roman Aqueducts, floating wind turbines, or cloud computing, and it’s horrible like the 9-11 mastermind, the medieval rack or the atomic bomb.”
“When the human beings inside of institutions are allowed time for self-reflection, and leadership at all levels tolerates the ambiguity that comes with sharing power across hierarchy, there is more life. There is more vitality and expansion. More creativity and healthy conflict. More equity and trust.”
In this essay, I highlight the essential role of the fool and his/her capacity to constantly challenge our assumptions about what we accept as the truth, the key to any creative endeavor worth its salt. Of the fool, I say, “He brings the beginner’s mind to vexing problems such that we can see them anew. She speaks without concern for social morays, saying what must be said while everyone else is too self-conscious to do so. He breaks up the rigid formalities of our overly scripted reality with non-sensical but healing diversions. And her presence ‘serves for the ruling powers as a constant reminder that the urge to anarchy will always exist in human nature and that it must be taken into account.’ All of this may be more relevant now in 2025 than when I wrote it in 2021.