Friday 5 February 2016

Creativity vs Technology

Hi Guys,


Hope you are doing well,


I was walking down the empty lanes near my house and there was a moment of a flash-back episode from my childhood. This was my motivation in writing or rather selecting this topic.


Before we jump straight into the topic, let’s understand the meaning of the terms individually.


Light Bulb

Creativity – The Oxford dictionary defines this as – “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something, inventiveness”


My Understanding – Creating something new, anything, without tagging it as good / bad, useful/ useless, profitable/loss.
Technology Gods




Technology - The Oxford dictionary defines this as – “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes.


My Understanding – Study of Techniques & using new tools to make life easier.



Everyone has a spark that hits them or as shown in olden cartoon a light bulb that powers up, this is an idea that needs to be worked on, needs to be tried on, failed and tried again and then go 100% on it. But that is slowly diminishing is what I feel, it’s not because the spark has stopped, but because people have started hesitating to own it up or even give it a try.


Before technology came into this world we were awesome, pushing brain to the maximum, and the results were astonishing (can say that because we created this so called technology :) itself). Later when it slowly picked up, the ratio of tech vs creativity was 10:90 and slowly it has changed over time. I guess now we can say that the ratio is somewhere 80:20, where creativity is narrowed down to better the technology in place and not think of anything else.


Look around and observe, all are on their mobile phones, children exposed to so called “technology” in a very early stages, we have sunk in or gone in depth to this technology, that we don’t have time to think or act on a new spark. When we are free we use mobile phones, when we are busy we are busy with either mobile/laptop/tv/gaming tech etc.



Gone are the days when kids used to be out and play all their childhood, May it be cricket/football or any innovative games they make up in their time. They used to work on their sparks and make it happen, this used to be helpful in many ways (boosts up their confidence, makes them feel proud, brings their self-esteem to where it belongs). Now they call it the e-era (internet era) where kids are playing football/criket etc on their game pads and in a virtual set up, why meet and greet when u can do that all online – is the new funda.


We are moving ahead in technology no doubt, but we are successfully covering the fact that we are moving backwards in creativity and innovation. It's something like the immunity system or the physical strength that has stayed in the olden era and slowly diminished over time, where one could survive major problems and now even for a mosquito bite we need help. Some may argue to the fact that we have severe diseases compared to earlier times, but again how did they come in place? - Lethargy, true because we invent things to make life easier and have to face consequences - anything easy has its side-effects.


Things that we are not able to cope :-


  1. Childhood :-
Learning to be dependent on technology, having low confidence - to the extent that if something fails we think of suicide, Everything made so easy - no need to use our brain / think, need a new idea - Google it, need some info - Google it, need suggestion regarding what to wear - Google it, and if Google says it’s impossible then its Final!!!


Technology has taken over our minds and we are blind to accept and change. In fact, we may even go and ask Google this question :D.


These times are supposed to be the best times - Utilise childhood efficiently and the future is set. But learning to be dependant makes things a little difficult. Purpose is changed to smaller things - materialistic things and that doesn’t help build personality.


We are what we teach and future observes us and they change accordingly, So what do you want to do :)



       2. Parenting: -
Quality Time
Raising children to be self dependent individuals, so they can take care of themselves is not the concept anymore, at least that’s what i feel. Now-a-days it’s more like make more money and you will survive (and if it doesn’t work out - eternal depression). We forget the fact that Money is not the key to happiness and teach that Money = Happiness, by the time we realize that Money was just a waste of time we’ll all be old and close to death beds (no doubt money is important, but its not equal to happiness, less fortunate people are more happy)


How do we make our children happy? In earlier days just a simple hug, kiss and family picnic would make them happy and leap with joy. But now we are so busy to do that, so  give them something, some new toy to get busy with and stop disturbing us, parents. once done with a toy give them an advanced one to get dependent to, no need to be around them coz we are so busy making money.


We make our children to think like us, 'Work hard, spend less time with family is a small sacrifice to make more money, as money is more important, and to make anyone happy materialism is the key'.
It has become tough for the parents of the e-era; what to give what not to, do we let them watch TV? if so which movies are not adulterated. Do we give them Mobile phones? If So at what age? when is the best time to sacrifice our children to the technology gods?


      3. Love : -
Bonding of 2 hearts....
Love is a waste of time - as said in one of the movies, No more Falling in Love, No more the eyes crossing, the heart’s beating, the nights in thoughts of the beloved ones, now-a-days its fast, you love someone - immediately tell it to the one, application accepted - loafed around for few hours and break-up the same day.


How can we expect things to go longer when we don’t have that level of patience, or tolerance? We want everything at the tip of our fingers, be it food (instant mix), be it money (work from home), or anything, that we expect the same for Love.


Love now-a-days expires fast coz its validity is also depreciating - one of the side effects of Technology Gods.


     4. Respect :-
Not With Fear...
Earlier respect was for the age, the older a person we respected them more. Now the richer the person, the more respect they earn. And while they are rich they get influential people along and get more respect not earn them.


No Need to work hard to earn respect. Get money and respect follows - but what we forget is that its not a good respect but a negative respect follows, where people respect out of fear and always curse them and wish them bad.


All easy things come with a costly price.


Respect has lost its meaning, and it also has been dying. We value goods more than people - earlier we cared for people and used the goods, now we care for goods and use people.
We not only use them but also leave them stranded.


Change in Thinking Style
Let's take our whole world as one big computer, we all for the hardware and the software for this, upgrading ourselves faster and faster.
What happens when a virus hits this computer?
  • It slows the world down,
  • It Corrupts files,
  • It pops a lot of errors,
  • It takes up a lot of space and memory goes down,
  • Finally crashes and dies.


For a Computer we can buy a brand new one - doesn’t really cost much or rather we can put a price on it. But what about our world?
  • Can we really afford a new world?
  • Can we put a price on it?
  • Can we create a new World?
  • Is Technology a Boon or a just sugar coated Virus?


Future in its making
Creativity Vs Technology - Conclusion

I guess it is safe to conclude that Creativity and Technology are inversely proportional to each other - which means that if Creativity increases, Technology reduces and Vice Versa.


What if we all decide to go Loco on Technology and give it a break?
What if we show it to Technology that we are more stronger than it?
What if we show it to our future that we can do it?
What happens then?


Well I love the dialogue from the movie PK - In the end When all is revealed, a sage says - We are indeed God Fearing people not God Loving and will return to the usual no matter how much fog / mist we clear up.


Just like that we have become Tech fearing people, we wont know what to do if we dont have one.


So then What is a Solution? What can be done? No Idea. All we can do is try and Travel the world, go to new places as Wisdom doesn’t come to us while we wait in one place. 

It is indeed when we travel that we achieve wisdom.


Just something to think on…


Let’s be the change we want around us :)


Thank you people, please feel free to leave any comments/ share your views :)

Picture Sourced from:

http://blog.ketchum.com/is-creativity-a-testro-fest/
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/ideas-bank/mark-pagel
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/10/15/the-top-ten-disruptions-in-hr-technology-ignore-them-at-your-peril/#400dcc4524be
http://scottpublicrelations.com/bridging-the-technology-gap-between-physicians-and-patients/
http://www.scientiamtech.com/technology.html