Necessity may well be the mother of invention, but it takes particular
people in particular contexts to do the inventing.
By fulfilling one need we may effectively close off some avenues of
enforced creative exploration, but we also open other opportunities. It
was the inadequacies of post that prompted the invention and adoption of
the telephone, and the limitations of voice only communication that lead
to the development and popularity of the fax (any one for telex?). It was
the storage of so much information in computers (and not in our heads,
where people used to be able to remember thousands of things), that
spurred on the development of laptops with CD-ROMs...
Of course this all begs the question of how necessary these necessities
might be, but that is a different discussion.
To my mind, at the core of the matter is that the seed of creation lies in
the individual's urge to create. Our modern conveniences allow us the
laziness to recreate where earlier we would have had no choice but to
innovate, but they do not still our creative yearnings. In many cases the
tools at our disposal increase the ease of creation. Freed from the need
to type and spell meticulously, thanks to whoever created automatic
correction and spell checking, I can now dedicate myself all the more to
the content of my messages.
Stood in Linz in 1997 Wolfgang Amadeus might well have had all his scores
on a CD-ROM in his laptop, ready to be sent via a MIDI interface to a bank
of synthesiser modules and samplers, sparing himself the trouble of
writing, reproducing and rehearsing a new score (and using his time
instead to see the sights and carouse). But I think Mozart was rather the
type to rise to such a challenge and satisfy himself in the production of
a new symphony at short notice.
Dave Hegarty
Homepage http://home.t-online.de/home/daveh/
--DAVID_HEGARTY@HP-Germany-om19.om.hp.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>