Life is Organic

Its been a very interesting day attending first a breakfast meeting and then an all day session around creativity as part of Derry/Londonderry's Cracking the Code programme leading up to the 2013 City of Culture.

An impressive bank of speakers including Sir Ken Robinson and Phil Redmond were punctuated by some engaging local characters and idea generating sessions in smaller groups. On behalf of Voluntary Arts Ireland I played a strong part thinking about how participation in the arts and crafts stimulates creativity. However, I was struck most by a phrase that came from Ken Robinson's initial address - "life is organic not linear"

When we think of all of the structures and processes that seem to provide the framework for our activities on the ground - virtually none of them are organic - they are nearly all linear and top-down. And yet this is just the opposite of how we, as human beings, go about living and interacting with others.

Take the creative process, which was also talked about today. We get an idea or a kernel of an idea, we play with it, we refine it, we connect it to other ideas and sometimes it becomes something that we act upon - we create it. One of the key skills in this process is the suspension of critical judgement. I might also say that one of the key skills is critical judgement. However, we must be able to suspend it long enough for us to create a bank of possibilities that encourage us to take the kernel further.

Critical judgement seems to be at the heart of most of the structures and processes mentioned above - it is a fairly advanced form of compounded critical judgement that say creates the legal system, and the influence of critical judgement is very great throughout policy making.

But is this now to our best advantage? Is this focus the way in which we are going to create a wider bank of possibilities that we all now seem to be seeking? Life is clearly organic and critical judgement has a part to play but do we have the balance right?

Kevin Murphy
Chief Officer
Voluntary Arts Ireland