Creativity

We were born to write and carve
We were made to paint and sing
Forgiven, now we build and breathe
And story-tell 'bout everything

I want to focus. I want to narrow down the things I think about, the things I am paying (notice the verb) attention to. Such things are receiving my attention like money that I am paying to them. The question is, what am I getting in return for my "investment"? It seems as though the broader the base, the larger the group of diverse items, that I pay my attention to, the less any of them can give me back. Another way of putting it is that I can only pay a little to each one at a time; therefore they can't give me much at a time.

So last night, in the dark, I pulled out my little notebook, the one I consider "disposable," for short-term to-do lists, grocery lists, and the like, and wrote something a little more important in it. I will copy it below, for posterity's sake.

This is a fascinating description of the movement to encourage children to spend more time outside.

Leave No Child Inside | by Richard Louv | Orion Magazine March-April 2007

Similarly, the back page of an October issue of San Francisco magazine displays a vivid photograph of a small boy, eyes wide with excitement and joy, leaping and running on a great expanse of California beach, storm clouds and towering waves behind him. A short article explains that the boy was hyperactive, he had been kicked out of his school, and his parents had not known what to do with him—but they had observed how nature engaged and soothed him. So for years they took their son to beaches, forests, dunes, and rivers to let nature do its work.

The photograph was taken in 1907. The boy was Ansel Adams.

Have We Lost Our Minds? | Christianity Today Movies

I'm not a moviegoer.  I have my reasons: in a nutshell, I live out what I watch.  Thus, I have to be careful about whose head I enter, whose life I live for a couple of hours.  Movies impact me very deeply, perhaps more deeply than the average person.

In spite of this, I wholeheartedly endorse this essay on Christianity Today, which describes the philosophy of one of their movie critics.  The critics who write for CT are striving to be good Christians and good movie reviewers.  What this looks (reads) like sometimes surprises both other Christians and other movie reviewers.

The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine

This is, for me, a stunning article.  I have a hunch it will take me a while to really process it.  See, the basic point of the article--supported in very powerful and conclusive fashion by repeated studies--is that it is worse, even destructive, to praise a child for his/her intelligence.  Those who are praised for their effort learn to respond to failure by trying harder.  Those who are praised for their intelligence are praised for something apparently beyond their control; I'm thinking it's like praising someone for the weather today.  So when a child runs into failure, they believe they have no recourse.  If all they have is their intelligence, and that's failed them, what can they do about it?  Nothing, they think.

UK report: knowledge should be public good first, private right second
  The third model in this article (also the one recommended by the commission) makes tons of sense to me.  When knowledge (more precisely known as Intellectual Property, and confusingly abbreviated as IP) is just a commodity, as it basically is in America, the process of creativity is isolated away from everyday life and everyday people.

Sadly, Americans generally take it as truth that intellectual property is primarily property, the possession of an individual or company.  Secondarily, almost reluctantly, property is given up at some arbitrary point in the future to become "public domain."  Why?  The average American couldn't tell you why, just that that's what we've always done.