creativity, survival & evolution

Though we don't often think about it, creativity is essential for our survival and evolution, both as individuals and as a species. One of the functions of the EARTH Lodge program is to provide an environment for creative expression and the inspiration to pursue it. For example, in the original Lodge (then called "Outdoor House") local artist Cristian Koshock came by to teach us about hand-building clay pottery, and this past equinox local teacher and community activist Ram Bhagat educated us about rhythm and drumming in the gazebo on Westhampton Lake.

And, in EARTH Lodge, "Creative expression" is a broad term that includes conversation, writing or dance as well as digital creations such as this group video composed by '08 Lodge members:"The Creativity Project." Lodge members also pursue more material creations such as linoleum block printing. This print, created by '08 Lodge member Jimmy Rague, is a good example of such a print. As we race into the digital age, elder technologies often slip away unnoticed and we are the poorer for it. Is there a good reason why we cannot retain the best of the old as we more thougtfully select and embrace the new? Why shouldn't we know how to build a fire as well as a website?

One of the unique aspects of EARTH Lodge is that the goal of more thoughtful engagement with technology and nature for the purpose of collecting a full quiver of skills, both old and new, that have joyful as well as practical purposes. In a time of crisis when the "experts" and promoters of orthodox economic,social and intellectual practices have been proven so wrong, it can be empowering to develop and exercise creative thinking for truly new solutions while learning practical new skills, both primitive and high tech - a mixture that enhances our ability to adapt and survive in a wider variety of circumstances.

Real learning involves far more than just reading and writing, although these are obviously essential. In his 1837 address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at a Cambridge graduation, Emerson noted that the three main influences upon the mind are that of nature, books and action. He says that "the first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature," and that although books are important neither they nor the ideas they contain should master us since "Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments." It is the actively engaged life, the one that takes risks, intellectual, emotional and physical, that is rich with learning from direct experience rather than hearsay.

Emerson explains why action is so important for the scholar and he describes how it functions to substantially enhance our more academic learning: "There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian,--as unfit for any handiwork or public labor, as a penknife for an axe. .... Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth....
The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

The world,--this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power."


It was hard to remember this while squatting beneath a 1000 lb. horse, but I have no doubt of the wisdom of Emerson's insight!

Marshall McLuhan

Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar – a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and, above all, a communications theorist. His work is considered one of the major cornerstones of the study of media theory. Born in Alberta, Canada, McLuhan attended the University of Manitoba for his undergraduate but was truly influenced in his graduate work at the University of Cambridge where he studied New Criticism which advocated a close reading and attention to the texts themselves, while rejecting criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially an author’s biography.

McLuhan’s interest with New Criticism led him to one of his major concepts, "the medium is the message." This concept, in short, states that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message. He proposes that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study; he said that the medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. Therefore, McLuhan argued that regardless of what is on television, the effects on society would be identical. His other main concept was that of "the global village," which explains how the electric communications media restores Western civilization through different features expressed by oral cultures. The mass media is essential in disseminating these ideas and in achieving the major goal which is to build consensus through generating public understanding.

What would McLuhan have to say about today’s society which values technology perhaps more than any other age before it? What would McLuhan have to say about YouTube or blogs? It is a society which is truly globalizing, disseminating ideas and revolutions thoroughly throughout the world. As McLuhan said, the technological age brings about a reinstituting of man’s participation in society that the literary culture of the early west took away. Technology today is creating an ever-growing global village while the media we use more and more (the internet) is shaping society as its predecessors have done before it.

Here is a video essay I helped create which stems from McLuhan's "medium is the message" theory though it branches off into a broader sort of message: