Why This Book

Evidence abounds of the deplorable and rapidly deteriorating human condition. Widely reported and deeply disturbing trends include:  

• "Institutionalized fear."  
  
  
• "Emotionally disturbed children."
   
• "Troubled youth."
         
• "Busy-yet-bored employees whose hearts are not in the work they are doing." 
        
• "Turned-off students” who say they "hate school," or describe their academic experience as "boring."
      
• "Honored and well-educated but without ever having experienced what it means to be truly alive.”
      
• Many people who have everything they ever wanted but, self-reportedly, still feel "empty inside," still look for "something" they say is "missing" in their lives.
         
• Worldwide "epidemic" of  stress, depression, burnout, and emotional breakdown. Resultantly, addictions, substance abuse, and the growing popularity of anti-depressants and various psycho-therapeutic procedures that, purportedly, “restore balance” in the lives of their users.
       
• Prisons around the world that are “overflowing with inmates,” and mental hospitals with “cases.”
        
• "Hundreds of troubled young people who have so much to live for [but decide to] take their own lives every year.” 
      
• "Ever more people today [who] have the means to live but not the meaning to live for.”   
      
• "The Forgotten Four-Fifths," who have neither the means to live nor the meaning to live for. 
       
• “Most of us [who] go to our graves with our music still inside, unplayed, [unheard].” 
  
  
• Mass uncertainty and anxiety in "a world where no one knows what to expect next."

Conventional wisdom largely regards these tragic human conditions as personal crises. Analysis and synthesis of the insights that are brought together in Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature conclusively demonstrate their systemic roots: fundamental misconceptions of human nature and the way of life that we have built on those misconceptions. 

Resolving the modern crises and building the viable global civilization and planetary future that everyone so deeply desires therefore require a new and authentic way of seeing ourselves and the purpose of our life. 

There, plainly, is the key to, as well as the agenda for, global recovery and development.

The aim of Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature is to spur worldwide actions on five critical global recovery and development needs:

• Recognize, develop, and beneficially engage everyone's natural abilities in meaningful, beneficial, and significant functions.  
   
• Halt the colossal and needless waste of human potential that has gone on for far too long.   
  
  
• Recognize and frontally address the world's underlying but unsuspected and unnoticed problem: Creativity Crisis.
  
  
• Meet the spontaneous and universal awakening to higher-order human needs: Identity. Meaning. Authenticity. Purpose.
  
  
• Provide new and authentic context for understanding and resolving the chaos the world is in. 

The remainder of this Page elaborates these vital global needs: 

Conventional wisdom largely regards the dreadful human condition as individual problems and, matter-of-factly, attributes them to personal inadequacies or, more generally, to “human propensity to evil.”    

Based on assumptions of personal inadequacies, several person-focused, person-centered solutions and remedies have been proposed and tried, including:

• Correction
• Counseling
• Deterrence
• Incarceration
• Motivation
• Punishment
• Rehabilitation
• Reward
• Therapy
• Etc. 

The limited success and, in many cases, counterproductive results of traditional punitive, correctional, and remedial approaches call into question the underlying assumption (personal inadequacy) that informs those interventions.  

The insights by which Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature is informed powerfully demonstrate that humankind is dealing with an existential problem — fundamental misconceptions of human nature, with their tragic psychological, social, political, and ecological consequences — but, inadvertently, tackling the symptoms of that problem.

If, therefore, we seriously hope to resolve our current difficulties and to achieve the viable and sustainable global future that everyone wishes to see, the logical and necessary starting point is to correct popular misconceptions about human nature that, evidently, are at the root of many of the difficulties the world is facing.

Central to the urgently needed and vitally important correction is a shift in the way we think about ourselves and the purpose of our life: 

• From:  The Homo Economicus model of humanity. 
• To:  The Homo Creativus model of humanity.
  
  
• From:  The rational economic human.
• To:  The potential-actualizing human.
       
• From:  The individualistic, self-centered, materialistic, man/woman. 
• To:  The purpose-driven, self-actualizing, potential-fulfilling man/woman.  
     
• From:  Economic consumption, wealth, and material possession as the goal — the end — of life. 
• To:  Economic consumption and material well-being as the MEANS to the END — developing and contributing one's unique abilities for the greater good. 

Implications: 

There, briefly, is the sum and substance of Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature — authentic and fundamentally different conception of human nature that is key to genuine and enduring success in all people-related matters.  

Seven billion 'locked treasure chests' are a terrible waste the world can no longer afford, ignore, or condone. The obvious referent here is the vast majority of people who live and die without ever realizing why they lived at all. Common and related everyday illustrations of this great waste include:    

• Billions of geniuses who never achieve their potential — billions of richly endowed men and women who live and die unrecognized either by themselves or by their society.   
   
• Successive human civilizations, including our own, that selectively recognize, selectively develop, selectively celebrate, and selectively reward certain human abilities;  and, perhaps inadvertently, ignore an infinite array of human possibilities. As a result, an inestimable number of human talents that, as yet, are not recognized, not developed, and not exploited. Still other human capabilities that are artificially constrained by circumstances, pitifully underdeveloped, grossly underutilized.
     
• Most people who never find their authentic life’s purpose — the vast majority of us who live and die without ever knowing who we really are and why we lived at all.
       
• "Ordinary" men and women who don't seem to believe that they have the potential to positively affect the world — to make significant contributions to their society and the planet.
       
• So many cultures, societies, institutions, and organizations where it is not safe to be original or different. Consequently, masses of people who are virtually stripped of their natural aptitude for imagination and creativity, and who therefore are functioning on minimal capacities for excellence.
       
• The dominance of tradition and entrenched views and values in many institutions and organizations, where established knowledge is cherished to the exclusion of creativity — where new ideas are suspect, and seldom get a hearing.  
   
• Vast segments of the human population that, due to economic, cultural, religious, or political circumstances — at times, outright oppression — are never able to cultivate their unique potential; so many others who are not even aware that they have such potential.  
      
• Incalculable number of great ideas that simply perish with no record — trampled by ignorance, fear, cruelty, or jealousy; stifled by psychological and socio-cultural pressures both within the individual and his or her society; starved to death by "benign neglect" or by lack of resources, encouragement, and support for their development.   
   
• Erroneous but generally accepted belief that creativity is a matter for the arts and music — a belief that tends to discourage people who work in other areas and disciplines from developing and engaging their natural abilities, since they do not believe that they are creative.
   
  
• The unfortunate division of humanity into the creative few and the "uncreative" many — distinctions like "genius," "creative individuals,' "honor students," "best and brightest," "gifted and talented," etc. that set a few individuals apart, while discouraging the vast majority from ever discovering, or ever realizing their own personal genius and creativity.
   
• The rise of individualism and economic self-interest. Correspondingly, growing disdain for the notion that the primary purpose of human life is to create — to bring about something original and beneficial — and to serve the greater good.  
     
• Finally, the tangled web of life-threatening and mutually reinforcing global crises, uncertainty, and anxiety. Resultantly, "a world where no one knows what to expect next."  

There is no denying the precarious and rapidly deteriorating state of the world. A terrible combination of mutually reinforcing crises threatens our very survival and continued existence, unless appropriate remedies are found to resolve them — and within sufficient time. In near-total despair of the future, informed and respected global observers variously portray our predicament as: 

• "evolution or extinction"    
• "change our ways or perish"   
• "species maturation or collective suicide"  
• And so on. 

Erich Fromm's gloomy but all too prescient observation succinctly summarizes the global dread and growing despair. Fromm's words: 

"This time, mankind is at one crossroad where the wrong step could be the last step."    

Daunting and deeply troubling! What is even more troubling, however, is the growing ineffectiveness of traditional approaches to apprehend the seemingly many and life-threatening crises. Hence the twin questions:

• Are the modern crises and the global predicament too difficult to solve?   
      
• Or, could it be that we've been tackling the wrong problems?

Contrary to popular belief and conventional wisdom, the modern crises and the global predicament are not “economic,” “social,” “political,” or “environmental” crises, per se. Our difficulties are not separate crises, either. And they are not due to widely assumed “human depravity” or “human propensity to evil.”   

Timeless and illuminating insights into the nature of human nature that are brought together in Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature suggest that we are facing existential crisis — inadequate and misleading sense of who we really are and the authentic purpose of our life — but, inadvertently, tackling its symptoms.     

Analysis and synthesis of the insights identify global creativity crisis as the underlying, but largely unnoticed and unsuspected predicament the world is facing: 

• This is the inability of the vast majority of people to realize their innate potentialities — inability to discover, to develop, and to engage one's natural abilities in significant and beneficial functions — and, resultantly, a global epidemic of meaninglessness of which many psychological, social, economic, political, and ecological crises are the symptoms, or facets. 

To the extent that this conclusion is valid, if we seriously hope to resolve the dreadful situation the world is in, and to achieve the viable and sustainable global future that we all wish to see, the logical and necessary starting point is to correct prevailing misconceptions of human nature that are at the root of many (probably, most) of our difficulties.

Central to this effort — this crucial and urgently needed correction — are: 

One: 

Universal recognition, nurture, and meaningful engagement of everyone's creative abilities.  

Two: 

Social-economic-political systems in which all the Earth's (currently) seven billion inhabitants are able to realize their potential — to develop and contribute their natural abilities —and, thus, to experience their lives as having meaning and significance.   

Three:

Considerable attention to inner development of people — including, in particular, ethical, moral, social, and ecological responsibility — in addition to economic consumption and material well-being.

The book for our time, Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature addresses itself to higher-order human and global needs that, ever more stridently, "clamor" for satisfaction. The more obvious of these are: 

• The spontaneous awakening of people, worldwide, to their inherent worth as humans.
  
  
• Increasing cross-cultural, cross-gender, cross-generational sensitivity to higher-order human needs: identity. Meaning. Authenticity. Purpose.
  
  
• The resonance of Homo Creativus with the way people deeply feel about themselves: Personal sense of one's uniqueness, with a special work to do, role to fulfill, contribution to make for the greater good.

There is no denying the precarious and rapidly deteriorating state of the world. A terrible combination of mutually reinforcing crises threatens our very survival and continued existence, unless appropriate remedies are found to resolve them — and within sufficient time. In near-total despair of the future, informed and respected global observers variously portray our predicament as: 

• "evolution or extinction"    
• "change our ways or perish"   
• "species maturation or collective suicide"  
• And so on. 

Erich Fromm's gloomy but all too prescient observation succinctly summarizes the global dread and growing despair. Fromm's words: 

"This time, mankind is at one crossroad where the wrong step could be the last step."    

Daunting and deeply troubling! What is even more troubling, however, is the growing ineffectiveness of traditional approaches to apprehend the seemingly many and life-threatening crises. Hence the twin questions:

• Are the modern crises and the global predicament too difficult to solve?   
      
• Or, could it be that we've been tackling the wrong problems?

Contrary to popular belief and conventional wisdom, the modern crises and the global predicament are not “economic,” “social,” “political,” or “environmental” crises, per se. Our difficulties are not separate crises, either. And they are not due to widely assumed “human depravity” or “human propensity to evil.”   

Timeless and illuminating insights into the nature of human nature that are brought together in Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature suggest that we are facing existential crisis — inadequate and misleading sense of who we really are and the authentic purpose of our life — but, inadvertently, tackling its symptoms.     

Analysis and synthesis of the insights identify global creativity crisis as the underlying, but largely unnoticed and unsuspected predicament the world is facing: 

• This is the inability of the vast majority of people to realize their innate potentialities — inability to discover, to develop, and to engage one's natural abilities in significant and beneficial functions — and, resultantly, a global epidemic of meaninglessness of which many psychological, social, economic, political, and ecological crises are the symptoms, or facets. 

To the extent that this conclusion is valid, if we seriously hope to resolve the dreadful situation the world is in, and to achieve the viable and sustainable global future that we all wish to see, the logical and necessary starting point is to correct prevailing misconceptions of human nature that are at the root of many (probably, most) of our difficulties.

Central to this crucial and urgently needed correction is a shift in the way we define ourselves and the purpose of our life — Homo Creativus. Homo Creativus involves, among other things: 

• Universal recognition, nurture, and meaningful engagement of everyone's creative abilities.  
  
  
• Social-economic-political systems in which all the Earth's (currently) seven billion inhabitants are able to realize their potential — to develop and contribute their natural abilities —and, thus, to experience their lives as having meaning and significance.   

• Considerable attention to inner development of people — including, in particular, ethical, moral, social, and ecological responsibility — in addition to economic consumption and material well-being.

Authentic and illuminating sense of who we really are and the purpose of our life, Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature puts us in touch with our innermost beings, so that we can use the resulting personal insight to relate more deeply with ourselves, with fellow human beings, and with nature.  

Beyond self-understanding, personal development, and psychological well-being, Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature seeks to mobilize the creative intelligence of all people to turn around the dreadful situation the world is facing.   

To that end, Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature urges goals for mankind and Planet Earth that everyone sees as universally beneficial to both humans and nature and, therefore, as worthy of the commitment of their time, their talents, and their creative energies.

There, in sum, are the reasons for, as well as the central message of Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature.

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