An article from earlier this year finally got round to publishing,
following on from my last post wishing you all a Happy New Year and my thudding reality:
I have been wondering of late whether people have more time
to be creative in the present day than they were in the past and to what extent
any greater creative potential available in the age of digital media
communications is mitigated by the technologically induced attention deficit
disorder it appears to induce.
My own creative urge
is to write, though my skill at the craft [if it can be called that] varies
wildly! I have at times lacked any inclination to do so, often for months, and
when I have tried during these periods what results is stilted and hardly
consequential. There are of course different types or forms of writing; I do
not mean the ability to produce i.e. a technical article on request about a
specific subject and this may just be a personal creative flaw of my own.
However, if I am to write something interesting, which in my case are essays of
one sort or another, I must first have been inspired. The difficulty is that I
cannot choose when and how often I am inspired and by what. Thought provoking ideas come in many forms;
from a song I have heard for the first time, or indeed a thousand times, a work
of art, a new place I have visited or fresh insights I have from a book, play
or film.
None of the above are exactly revolutionary points but I
can’t help but make them for there is something wonderfully strange about the process
of, and the urge, to write creatively. If I find that I am inspired to put pen
to paper I don’t have much time for the idea will dissolve unless I start to
give it concrete form and develop it. I also do not know what overall point I
am making, if any, until I have at least captured the initial spark in ink.
What has put some wind in my sails lately is that I have had
more time to stop and think about things and to read/see a feast of literary
and cultural delights. In my case this has been due to being unable to do a
great deal due to a fractured vertebrae but whatever catalyst gets you started
treat it as a silver lining and seize it with both hands!
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to see an exhibition of Leonardo
Da Vinci’s anatomical drawings and notes; his artistry was extraordinary but
nowhere near as much as his insights. Using only pen, paper, his eyes, and I assume some very sharp
implements, he was able to map the human body with extraordinary accuracy
making insights about the function and mechanics of organs hundreds of years
before anyone else. Some of his work could still be regarded as cutting edge in
modern science. For example, he ingeniously took a wax cast of an ox heart and
made a glass replica from it. He then poured water containing grape seeds
through it and observed the swirling patterns, or eddies, the sand made as it
passed through. Somehow, he worked out
that these currents play a role in closing the valves of certain parts of the
heart to enable it to pass on to the next part, something scientists only
worked out very recently. Tragically, this incredible work was only published
in 1900 as it would have utterly transformed the study of anatomy in Europe
centuries earlier than it has actually developed. That being said it is a small
miracle we know of it at all, the only copy sat in a vault for centuries and
could easily have been lost, only to be published centuries later.
It seems to be a tradition that older people think the world
is somehow “going to pot” and that people are less well informed that they used
to be, that journalism is dead and politics is corrupt. There have of course
always been corrupt politicians, rubbish journalists or political propagandists
who seek to destroy language (the phrase ‘U-turn’ appears to be their favourite
missile at the moment) and there will always be some things wrong with the
world. What is certainly not the case is that we are less well informed than
any previous generation.
The internet, along with the rest of IT, has increased the
ability of people to find out about new ideas dramatically. It has also
democratised the forming and expression of opinion on any subject imaginable
hugely. This has meant that a substantial proportion of the internet is
dedicated to subject matters of debates which are not necessarily interesting
or important; who after all in their right mind (over the age of 12) really
cares what Justin Beiber is doing!
I think that we get a rather stratified and distorted view
of the past. Though far fewer people were able to be creative in a way that
could be recorded; aside from no internet, most people were too busy just
surviving to write a sonnet and may well have been ignored or even persecuted
had they managed to do so. For every Milton and Keats we know of there may well
have been dozens more whose work has simply not survived or who have been
marginalised to the point of being forgotten, as many we do remember i.e. Keats
very nearly were. There will also of course have been a great many more
writers, poets, musicians, scientists and other creative types who were simply
not very good!
This is the point I think people miss, that no one will know or care who Justin Bieber
or Miley Cyrus are in 20 years. In 20 years there will be just as many new,
unmemorable and talentless people who will in turn be forgotten. We will of
course be left with a permanent digital reminder of Bieber et al. thanks to
modern technology. However, there is vastly greater opportunity for talented
people not to be missed, or even just to have the chance to be creative in the
first place and I think that is a price well worth paying.
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