Sean D. Francis

Does the Creativity Crisis Mean We Lack Courage?

Posted on 21 July 2010

Jeffrey Phillips wrote Innovate on Purpose: Creativity takes Courage which I found to be an interesting analysis of creativity in the business world and to be an interesting addendum to the American creativity crisis.  If creativity takes courage and we are in a creativity crisis, are we saying that America currently lacks courage?

I say yes.  America seems to be going through the same struggle on a national scale that I am on a personal scale.  Fear of change, fear of innovation, fear that it might suddenly find itself going down a slippery slope from which it can’t recover.   So we teach our children to take standardized tests and don’t even ask if the tests are the actual knowledge we want our children to have.   We have entire industries ignoring major technological breakthroughs.

I am not putting words in Jeffrey’s mouth.  I have no idea how he feels about the creativity crisis, but when creativity is put in terms of courage, it suddenly crystallized in my mind.  The very things that keep me from pursuing my dreams, my passions, are the very things that are holding the country back.  We once again need to get back to the point where we reward innovation and reward difference even if the innovation fails and the difference scares us.

That applies to us individuals as well.  Try, do stuff, be different, reach for the stars, and if we fail, we need to acknowledge the effort and do it all again.