Welcome to the great creativity cage match of our time: human brains versus silicon chips. The question isn't just academic cocktail-party fodder anymore—it's urgent, existential, and frankly, a bit terrifying for anyone who's ever felt proud of thinking outside the box.
We live in an age of perpetual stimulation. Our phones buzz with notifications, our screens flicker with endless content, and our calendars overflow with commitments. The modern world has declared war on boredom, treating every empty moment as an emergency requiring immediate intervention. But in our frantic rush to fill every second with activity, we may be starving the very source of our creative power.
I’ve always been fascinated by the moment an idea arrives — not the neat, tidy moment when it’s been polished and wrapped in ribbon, but the untidy, slightly breathless instant when something shifts in the mind and a new possibility becomes visible.
When someone eats your last Rolo, you feel a totally disproportionate sense of loss. It’s not about the chocolate. It’s about the gap. The narrative was broken.
So, we became wired not just for survival, but for pattern and narrative. We became restless, creative creatures—itchy with the need to make meaning. We drew patterns in the dirt, scratched stories on cave walls, and eventually, designed complex systems, cities, and even shoes that glow in the dark. All of this because our brains, forever uncomfortable with uncertainty, keep asking, What happens next?
Systems and reductionist thinking.
According to Karl Popper, all problems are either Clocks or Clouds. A clock is something you can take to pieces analyze the parts and work out how it works. A cloud is a dynamic system, you can’t it apart. The way to understand a cloud is to study it in a holistic way.
32 years ago I used to be a very heavy smoker, nearly two packs per day. Soon after the birth of my daughter, we brought her home from the hospital. As I held her in my arms I was also just finishing a cigarette. My daughter gave a little cough and I realised if there was ever a time to give up smoking this was it!
