The greater impediment to creativity is not the lack of resources or ideas (I’m thinking of the so-called “starving artist” syndrome), but rather that we tend to understand and to assign value to the idea of time primarily as it pertains to this life alone, no before, no after. The point is that while our lives are significant, the context for how we understand and evaluate our time here in this world may in all reality lie beyond what we typically know and understand as time.
Similarly, the value we tend to assign to things—our treasure—is measured in terms of return on investment in this world, “what can I get in return?” This is important, but not ultimately so unless we are talking about returns on investment that, in our understanding of time infinite, have lasting implications beyond our lives. How much really is enough?
Further, our talent or the unique ways in which we are wired are invested in those whom we love and cherish. And this is good. But it’s not all. How then might we justify and reward service to others, the bringing about of justice in areas that may not directly concern us or involve those whom we care for? The point here is that there is more to our talent that what we might conceive.
I offer the argument above to make the point that we tend to define creative satisfaction or success ultimately in terms of something to be understood and experienced in finite rather than infinite terms. However, to envision the nature and scope of human imagination and technology primarily in terms of human desirability, viability, and feasibility in this world alone as we know it is short-sighted.
As much as the applied dimension of creativity is important in order to get things done (design), creative satisfaction should consider and measure time, talent, and treasure in ways that go beyond our everyday finite understanding of these terms.
We measure time in terms of how we spend our time here on earth. This is turn is evaluated in terms of how much money or wealth we accumulate for ourselves or generate for others. Such wealth is then bequeathed or distributed to succeeding generations and/or invested for impact (again, measured in finite terms), all brought about by the efficient use of our gifts and talents in the effort (or worthy excuse) of serving others.
But how might we practice an infinite (as opposed to finite) understanding of creative satisfaction?
