“The continuum, as I see it, starts with imagination. It’s the most extraordinary set of powers that we take for granted: the ability to bring into mind the things that aren’t present. It’s why we are so different from the rest of life on earth. That’s why we’re sitting in a beautiful building, drinking from these cups. Because human beings make things. We create things. We don’t live in the world directly; we live in a world of ideas and of concepts and theories and ideologies.”
– Sir Ken Robinson (b. 1950), in a Fast Company interview and, as quoted by Bob Lefsetz in his Saturday post
Sir Ken, of the famous TED Talk, and author of the book, The Element, is an “educationalist” — and a fairly harsh critic of our current education system, especially when it comes to its effect on creativity.
One could argue that we’re killing creativity — and the relative dearth of it is testimony to the argument.
Our schools, including most of the best B-schools and universities, suck all the imagination out of us. “Data,” they say. “Analysis,” they say. It all comes down to what you can measure. Well, if you’ll forgive the harshness of my sentiment, that’s bullshit. Pure and utter BS.
“Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts.” It was either Einstein or William Bruce Cameron that said that — and I couldn’t care less — because it is pure and simple genius. If we really want to break out, we gotta use more than math to do it. We gotta solve something that someone else doesn’t even know needs solved. And, no one is teaching that skill set any more.
One of my colleagues has a running joke with me — he holds his fingers up in an “O” shape on his forehead to remind me that I’m old. It’s funny, especially because he’s something of an old soul himself. And, when he calls me old, guess what? I am. Guilty as charged.
I am also from a generation that thrives on imagination. On creativity. And not just because the 70’s and 80’s were so good to us, either.
We had to figure stuff out. We had to explore. At the risk of sounding even more like Loren Stark, my grandpa, “By God, we had to find a way.”
Difference makers understand that the internet has many answers, but not all of them. Difference makers understand that a degree is a sign of intelligence, of accomplishment, but not a shortcut to meaningful answers. Difference makers understand that, as Sir Ken says, “The continuum starts with imagination. It’s the most extraordinary set of powers that we take for granted; the ability to bring into mind the things that aren’t present.”
If they were — we wouldn’t need…well, we wouldn’t need US.
Create things. Imagine them and then freaking create them. Answers. Products. Solutions. Difference makers use imagination as a powerful tool toward significant and long-lasting outcomes.
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