Creativity and Patience

Since starting this blog, I’ve been exploring the world of blogs and new media and loving the connection that the internet is enabling between people from far flung corners of the world.

Through this blog, I have hooked up with writers in Malaysia, South America and the US as well as across the UK and I know from my site statistics that people I don’t know ranging from Japan to Australia to Africa and France are dropping by to sample my writing and podcasts and film clips. In my turn, I read blogs from all over the world, commenting and emailing some of the authors and merely passively dropping by once in a while on other’s sites. For me, it’s a fantastic opportunity to learn from and share our ideas and knowledge at a global level - from the comfort of my own home. I’ve drawn on discussions and styles from other bloggers and I know that other bloggers have taken some of my ideas and developed them for their own needs. It is as if creativity sparks more creativity that in turn sparks more creativity.

I am particularly fascinated by how video and audio is used on the web - with relatively cheap technology and easy to use software, there has been an explosion of short films and podcasts in the last year on the web. I love surfing to find a witty film (Where the Hell is Matt? and the Response to Where the Hell is Matt) or a clever mashup (Brokeback to the Future) or a video of people’s wild and daring antics (Don’t Try This at Home and a surfer riding a mountain of a wave coming up on Bank Holiday Monday (UK)). I’ve come across a lot of terrible stuff but also others that can only be described in that catch-all phrase of the moment: “awesome”. I am also impressed by the patience and meticulousness that some of these creative artists have to carry out their stunts - eg the dancing fountain made out of Diet Coke and Mentos pellets and the domino chain made from household items that will be coming up in the next few weeks.)

In the old days, people would collect stamps or build things out of meccano. No doubt, some people still do. Certainly, singing in choirs or taking part in amateur dramatics has always been around and will continue being around. Organising, filing, making prototypes, rehearsals, learning script by heart - it all takes effort and focus and time. It’s like work except that people do it for fun. The bloggers and filmmakers and young guys seemingly doing pointless but clever things with Coke bottles aren’t very different from these others - only the medium for their creativity and patience is different. And their audience isn’t just their mum and dad or the local village but a global headcount that can extend into millions.

Awesome.