From the Journal: Creativity

Round two: this is one of my favorites that I've done recently. I will probably spend some time working on the last paragraph---it just doesn't have quite the right ring yet. Either needs to be more confrontational or more conciliatory.



I'm a Barbie Girl,
In a Barbie world!
Life is plastic;
It's fantastic!

We are obsessed with novelty. If this were leading where it should be leading, i.e. into innovation, creativity, and the general improvement of the species, well, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? The truth is, we have a problem. Our laziness has grown ata much faster pace than our desire for newness, and so we sit back, click through the channels, and wait for something to amaze us. But we don't find it.

Human beings have an innate need to build, create, and alter the world. We love beauty, and we love to decorate. Even the most utilitarian things--bridges, engines, tools, alarm clocks--have an aesthetic principle behind them, millions upon millions of dollars spent not only on making a thing, but on making it say something, too. Statements. What does your product say to the customer, what does your product say about the customer, but ultimately, what does it say to the customer's neighbors and friends? The appearance has to sell the product. It has to be 'sexy'. It's also got to be dispensable, it needs to be cheap, it needs to be obsolete within the next two or three years.

I started an experiment last year. I decided that I wanted to shop second-hand, harvest yarn from old sweaters, build toys from fabric remnants, and art from the discarded rag-ends of a faster-moving society.

Guess what I found?

That we have lost something fundamental to our status as human beings: our love of creation, our need to create. The expression of all things human in me brought to my surface. I make all my own shirts. I knit all my own hats. I shop second-hand, second by second reducing and spreading thin my carbon footprint.

The most amazing thing is the reactions I get from other people:

"I wish I could do that."

You can.

"I wish I had the patience to learn to knit."

There are thousands of books, and hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos. No excuses, if both of your hands are attached and functional. There was a time when kids learned in the first grade.

I want more people to learn what I've learned, to see what I've seen. In this day of plastics and petroleum, the organic is amazing, the homegrown astounding, the handcrafted seditious and revolutionary. To make something that is yours, and yours alone, is an act of rebellion against a system that has conspired to make us look alike, sound alike, and, ultimately, think alike--a system that does not tolerate diference of any kind, while trumpeting the virtues of corporate individuality.