Creativity and Breakthroughs // Variant Perception #24
"Creativity is connecting things." - Steve Jobs
When I reflect on what I desire out of life, I tend to view it in the feelings, emotions, and states of being I desire to cultivate.
How can I feel more joy, curiosity, love, faith, passion, connection, etc? Focusing on the state of being allows me to optimize for how I’d like to feel rather than what I’d like to acquire. What I acquire then becomes in service of how I choose to feel.
I work backward from how I desire to feel and create the behaviors, systems, and actions needed to bring those into reality.
One of the states of being that I most highly value is creativity. Creativity is closest on the spectrum of experience to spirituality and faith. Creativity lives and breathes in that mystical place of infinite potential where spiritual experiences come from.
This connection is why cultivating creativity is important and why I write this newsletter.
Understanding my pathways to creativity has been one of the best uses of my direct focus.
A creative exercise I use inside of Variant Perception is mixing and matching ideas from disparate bodies of knowledge, commonly called conceptual borrowing or, as I like to call it, cross-pollinating.
The Steve Jobs quote above sums this up well, "Creativity is connecting things."
Art is simple to understand, challenging to execute. It’s the mixing and matching of ideas over and over again. As Rick Rubin puts it, artists are “the cultural radio towers” of society, downloading, mixing, and broadcasting new forms of culture.
Ideas and concepts from one field can inspire breakthroughs in another. It's like swapping ideas at a giant intellectual potluck. You can take entire disciplinary perspectives, including underlying assumptions and methodologies, and apply them to new focus areas. It's not theft; it's creative recycling.
This works in business by finding a common practice in one industry and then applying it to another industry that does not have these practices.
Or, as I’ve been chewing on this week, it works by applying ideas from medicine and disease to why our world feels incapable of progress in certain areas like culture and politics.
The stifling of progress comes from the “institutional immune system.” Just like our bodies have a desire to live and thrive, so do institutions in a way. An institution, say a specific industry, corporation, branch of government, or large non-profit, is comprised of people whose lives, meaning, fulfillment, and well-being depend in one way or another on that institution continuing to exist and, in many cases, growing its power, profits, and influence.
To get a view of the immune system at work, all you need to do is google anything considered non-consensus, Elon buying Twitter, RFK Jr. running for President, and The Sound of Freedom becoming a box office hit. You’ll see traditional media outlets sharing repeated insults, attempts to discredit, and continual negging of credibility.
Naturally, these organizations will have methods for defending themselves from outside critiques and pressures that jeopardize their existence and influence. Regardless if the institution has outlived or been corrupted from its original intention, it will still fight to maintain its power or, said another way, its health.
In politics, we see the immune system work in different ways. Congress changes the boundaries of voting districts to favor their party, a process known as gerrymandering. They then resist instituting term limits and a ban on stock trading, further entrenching their power.
It can be seductive to interpret this as evil. These are bad people doing bad things. And while that’s true, and an individual always must stand up for what’s just, this perspective does not help to understand WHY these things are happening.
If we only believe things are wrong because people are corrupt, the conclusion must be that nothing can change. While people can be corrupt, they’re also a product of their environment.
Everything has momentum, including institutions, businesses, and populations. Even power and the accumulation of power has momentum. These large organizations, such as American politics and media, have enjoyed decades of power accumulation, and we’re watching them fight (aka their immune systems are activated) to maintain that power even though the ground has begun to shift underneath their feet.
The rise of alternative forms of media, such as podcasts, YouTube shows, and newsletters, has disintermediated the monopoly that TV enjoyed for decades on the attention (and massive profits) that came with it.
A quick example, Tucker Carlson was the most-watched news personality on TV when he was employed by Fox, getting 3.5 million viewers an episode on his show before he was let go.
Now, publishing exclusively on Twitter, his reach has 10xed, with some episodes reaching over 100 million people.
New forms of media and the non-stop degradation of integrity have destroyed and decayed many media companies profits. I imagine it won’t be long (5-7 years) before Fox News and CNN see similar fates. That’s one of the reasons we see a determined effort to delegitimize alternative ways of making sense of the world, especially from those in the ivory towers.
We’re in a distinct period where many institutions' immune systems have been activated. As I’ve shared, we’re in the 4th turning and shifting socioeconomic and political power dynamics.
Maintaining the kung-fu grip of control is the primary objective of many current institutions of power and the reason for censorship and narrative manipulation. Except, censorship is never the answer except in extreme cases when that speech is illegal under the law (violence, sex trafficking, etc).
What can be done about this? What more helpful frames of perspective exist that can lower the psychic damage from seeing the powers that be only as corrupt and evil rather than a living, breathing entity where actions and outcomes get influenced by incentives as well as individuals?
I will borrow from another framework detailing differing medical philosophies to share some thoughts.
The majority of medicine today focuses on germ theory. Germ Theory says that specific types of microorganisms cause specific diseases. You get the flu because the influenza virus enters your body. Developed by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century, Germ Theory revolutionized medicine by suggesting that diseases could be prevented by controlling the microorganisms that cause them. This led to developing of antibiotics, vaccines, and various sanitation practices.
This is how most people view medicine today, and it’s brought significant progress in human health and sanitation.
Except, it’s only one part of the equation. A competing theory came around at the same time, Terrain Theory. On the other hand, Terrain Theory was proposed by Claude Bernard, a contemporary of Pasteur. It suggests that the body's internal environment, or "terrain," is the primary factor in determining health or disease. According to this theory, if the body is healthy and its systems are balanced, it can resist pathogenic microorganisms. Terrain theorists argue that disease results from an imbalanced internal state rather than the direct attack of external pathogens.
Censorship and gatekeeping are the germ theory equivalent of antibiotics and hand sanitizer. Yes, there exist times when those are both necessary and warranted. Except, when overused, they leave the host weaker, not stronger.
Applying the terrain theory view to fostering healthy institutions creates a different perspective. Social threats such as misinformation, polarization, inequality, and other problems can be viewed not as something that needs to be banished, blocked, and destroyed but as information detailing issues with the health of the system's terrain.
The focus shifts to fostering a strong and balanced internal bodily environment that resists diseases; the emphasis in a societal context would be on fostering a strong and balanced social "terrain" to resist these threats.
So, what if we viewed this through a different lens? What if, instead of focusing on the "germs" (disruptive ideas or criticisms), we saw them as potential catalysts for growth and improvement?
This would be akin to shifting our perspective from germ to terrain theory. Instead of seeing germs as the sole cause of disease, terrain theory posits that the condition of the organism’s “terrain” (its bodily environment) determines whether or not the organism falls ill.
In an institutional sense, this might mean focusing on creating an environment that is transparent, accountable, and supportive of participation and dialogue. It would involve fostering a culture that embraces change and encourages diversity of thought rather than suppressing it. It's about cultivating a system for self-correction, resilience, and adaptability.
What happens when we add more focus to the terrain of the landscape? Let's strengthen our societal and institutional terrains, making them robust, adaptable, and resilient. And we could start seeing some progress in those areas we've felt incapable of influencing.
Just remember, every organism, every institution, every society has an immune system. But it's the strength and adaptability of the terrain that determines whether the system thrives or dies.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible momentum of inept systems, remember: change doesn't always come from attacking the existing reality. Instead, it often comes from building new models that make the existing ones obsolete.
In the words of Buckminster Fuller, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
As I cross-pollinate ideas from different fields to unlock my creativity, we can apply this mindset to our understanding of institutions. Rather than viewing them as immovable behemoths, we can see them as dynamic terrains - susceptible to the seeds of change. All it takes is one tiny seed - one idea, one action, one shift in perspective - to create a ripple of change that can reshape the terrain.
So, with all that said, I urge you all to look at the world not as a static place defined by its diseases but as a vibrant, living organism where the terrain matters. A place where the creative cross-pollination of ideas from diverse fields can lead to a healthier, more robust, and resilient society. Stay curious, keep exploring, and remember - there are no boundaries in the world of ideas—only connections waiting to be made.
Keep pollinating, everyone.
-Jared
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