Creative Expressors Are Just As Important As Engineers

What am I including in that category? Well, investigative journalists, beat journalists, op ed journalists, actors, comedians, satirists. You could probably name more here. Certainly a certain class of book author, falling somewhere between, an investigative journalist, and a full blown academic, would be another, though I'm not sure what I'd call the grouping; if one doesn't already exist.

To understand this importance you need only consider how any oral history would have survived at all were it not for the appropriately gifted story teller. How could an account be nearly as involving, as the in the moment experience of a deeply connected people would create, were it not for one who could both feel it properly, and retell it with equal, relative fidelity. And of course, as the operating environments have changed (moving from just oral, to literate, and now to everything at once) over the centuries, the creative expressers have had to change as well.

I mention this, I must confess, out of both purely self interest, but also to point out that we not only need these people, we all need to be able to do at least some of what they can do as well, precisely because it is so important (if for no other reason than we would then have the better ability to recognize good journalism when we saw it).

I know that certain individuals, in particularly high positions of power, are telling you now that these people are not to be trusted. And I also know that these (usually money/promoter types, whether they call themselves business people or not) people are sometimes very clever in how they make their charges seem legitimate in a general sense.  In this, however, I must tell you that they are completely, and utterly, wrong.

Sure. As the quality of workmanship across the country will attest to, for all skills, the particular skill levels, professionalism, focus, and the usual vulnerabilities to temptations of various kinds for all people, leads to a very wide of distribution in what comes out as possible examples of said skill. In large part, however, in most of them, professionalism, and/or competition via skill level, usually puts what works at the forefront; and in this bad doesn't usually work for very long; or at least long in one disguise (which is another thing these money/promoter types are good at putting on, and taking off).

Some people, however, it seems can get away with saying damagingly incorrect things, repeatedly, and people will still listen to them. And for my part I think it is more a reflection of how bad things can get when people have lived so long without the generational consistency, and stability, of "thoughtful, loving structure." And of course, the really interesting thing there is that the particulars of that structure can vary widely and still produce the same structural effect; it will just be from a different frame of reference than ours, and thus may not seem quite right in any number of ways. The very things we must ignore and continue on in our own way, because we have to.

In any case, though, the selfish part here is that I will not be an extensive creative expresser in the dissemination of this idea. I will, of course continue to participate in the debate I hope will arise around it, but the creative expression is not what the observer, and articulator, of process is for (at least no more than any ordinary citizen, which, as already stated, everyone should be at least be capable of). Practically speaking of course, I won't be able to escape all of that responsibility, but I do serve notice that I will limit it as much as I can.

The bottom line here is that I do not wish to be an idea celebrity; running around making money on that fact that I have an "idea brand." And then henceforth propel the brand along on all of the talk shows. There are already a number of people doing that (a lot better than I could) so I don't think we need any more. And please believe me when I say that many of these people are very good at what they do and serve a necessary purpose. And a few, certainly, not so much; which also, to a significant degree, depends on your point of view.

In a sense I guess I have only expanded what I was already doing as an analyst/developer; looking at complex process flows and then reporting back on what I thought the problem was; and then maybe also helping in concocting the design for a solution. All through that, I hasten to add, though, I never felt the need to tout, far and wide, the advantages of a particular design paradigm, or coding language, or whatever else, even if one or another of them felt warranted to be use in a particular solution. For me it was just working the problem, understanding it, and then maybe fixing it.

The real problem here is that we may all be looking at getting kicked out of whatever comfort zone (relatively speaking) we've been able to construct for ourselves; myself included. I can say that because I know incredible demands may be made of all of us if we acknowledge this analysis at all. After all, at the very least, even if my alternative is junked altogether, we'll still be faced with the very clear feeling we've all been having for at least the last five to ten years: Something has to change, and it has to change in a very big way.