To Create or Not Create? Is that the Question?

Creating is what we do, it's hard to argue that we don't.

• Some would call it the march of history: humans inevitably innovate, iterate, and optimize because that's just what we do. To an extent that's true.
• Some would say the world is random and competition is fierce, so out of darwinian instinct we are driven to invent in order to survive. There is an element of truth.
• Others would say that humans are?called?to create. We are given a divine gift by the ultimate creator and?bestowed with the power to manifest reality from imagination. I would ascribe to this camp.

Yes... we manifest reality. Sometimes in games or movies, you see an X-men-like character that can create from raw thought. #Jealous. That isn't really untrue, time is just exaggerated.

• I can imagine a sand castle and actually manifest that sand castle into reality. It might just take a few hours and some practice, but I can do it with the raw resources provided to me.
• If I want to manifest a chair, I need to use a few tools that others manifested in reality, and get some wood from a tree, or find someone else who harvested those natural resourses and shape them into a chair.
• Want to build a house? A boat? A houseboat? You can do that too. You just need to recruit others, sell them on the idea, gather the resources, and you can turn your vision into reality. Presto.

Now of course, you can't get too far ahead of "what's possible," because to manifest complicated/intricate/connected reality takes cooperation AND more time, sometimes more than a lifetime. Yet, the fundamental truth is that almost anything is possible with enough imagination>vision>cooperation>time. People create, more people create more.

• Partners are greater than one
• Teams even better
• Communities - now we're getting somewhere.
• How about a nation behind a cause or purpose?
• A civilization? That power extends beyond borders.
• Generations of people? Creative power extending beyond time.

To actually shape reality itself is extreme unadulterated power.?Some might say divine power. We wield it individually, and we wield it corporately.

The question then arises, what will we cooperate in creating?

• We can cooperate in destruction, maliciously seizing tools of flight and repurposing them into weapons, flying planes full of people into buildings full of people in order to shape reality into an environment of fear, violence, destruction, and death.
• We can cooperate in seizing the opportunity to destroy resources in exploitative gain for just a few at the expense of the many. A reality of terminal decay and nihilism.
• Or. We can cooperate together in not just "not being evil"?#Google, not merely being "ethical"?#Apple,?but doing?redemptive work.

Redemptive work is different. It doesn't just avoid doing damage, it reverses the curse.

• Redemptive work goes beyond simply not dehumanizing people, but rehumanizing people through the formation of better systems of power, economics, markets, and governance that we collectively use to shape society. Governments, policies, and economic systems are not inevitable, they're just inventions.
• Redemptive work recognizes the most precious of resources (animals, plants, people, building blocks of life/earth) for what they are—the only thing we don't get more of. The world?only conceptually?works like Minecraft: build what you imagine. In reality we don't get unlimited blocks: respect life for what it is, a gift.
• Redemptive work understands that legacy is vanity, while great impact may be measured generationally, it doesn't matter if people remember you for it over generations. Redemptive work doesn't care about what you can lay claim to or put your name on.
• Creative acts worth pursuing extend beyond the creators life to the next generation who will stand on your shoulders and probably take credit, just like we took credit standing upon the shoulders of those who came before us.

Real creation isn't about pride, it's about purpose.

Real change is best forged through cooperation.

Real impact is measured generationally.

What will you build?