The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

I'll be working to integrate more of the primary work into my analysis, but for now, this is the final draft of the research paper that I wrote for my digital literacy class.

The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

          From the very genesis of recorded history, mankind has sought to create, to bring his thoughts into reality and to leave his indelible mark upon the world around him. For some civilizations, that has meant erecting massive monuments to gods and men; others preserved their ideas and culture through literature– within epics and songs and the tales of the past. In the modern, globalized era, however, the rules of creativity are changing. Especially over the last few decades, the desire to create has taken on new forms as the Internet and other digital media resources have made accessible the realms of thought and creativity for the world as a whole. Ayn Rand, in her landmark novel, The Fountainhead, investigates the concept of creativity, championing the individual creative ideal and warning against the collectivization of creative thought. Rand died years before the invention of the Internet and a great many other modern digital resources, yet her commentary on creativity and thought abide today as a lasting monument to the human spirit of creativity. A thoughtful study of digital media through the lens of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead clearly reveals the value of independent creativity and unveils digital media's role in providing a new and living medium through which creative thought may find expression.

Take 2: The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

Greg Bayles

Research Paper

Dr. Gideon Burton

6/5/2012

The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

               From the very genesis of recorded history, mankind has sought to create, to bring his thoughts into reality and leave his indelible mark upon the world around him. For some civilizations, that has meant erecting massive monuments to gods and men; others preserved their ideas and culture through literature, within epics and songs and the tales of the past. In the modern, globalized era, however, the rules of creativity seem to be changing. Especially over the last few decades, the desire to create has taken on new forms as the Internet and other digital media resources have revolutionized the realms of thought and creativity for the world as a whole. Ayn Rand, in her landmark novel, The Fountainhead, investigates the concept of creativity but warns against the collectivization of creative thought, indicating that in following after and yielding to the opinions of others, the creator compromises his virtue of self and betrays his individual creative identity. However, a thoughtful study of digital media through the lens of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead clearly reveals the value of independent creativity and unveils digital media's role in providing a new and living medium through which creative thought may find expression.

The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

Greg Bayles

Research Paper

Dr. Gideon Burton

6/4/2012

The Fountainhead of Human Creativity

From the very genesis of recorded history, mankind has sought to create, to bring his thoughts into reality and leave his indelible mark upon the world around him. For some civilizations, that has meant erecting massive monuments to gods and men; others preserved their ideas and culture through literature, within epics and songs and the tales of the past. In the modern, globalized era, however, the rules of creativity seem to be changing. Especially over the last few decades, the desire to create has taken on new forms as the Internet and other digital media resources have revolutionized the realms of creativity and thought for the world as a whole. Ayn Rand, in her landmark novel, The Fountainhead, investigates the concept of creativity but warns against the collectivization of creative thought, indicating that in following after and yielding to the opinions of others, the creator compromises his virtue of self and betrays his individual creative identity. However, a thoughtful study of digital media through the lens of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead clearly reveals the value of independent creative thought and unveils digital media's role in providing a new and living medium through which creative thought may find expression.

Getting My Feet Wet...

This is a song that I put together to try to convey some of the thoughts that I've been having about creativity and expression lately. I've been studying The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, and in it, Rand really emphasizes the idea of individual creation. I wanted to extend that to encompass more so the ideas of self-actualization through creation and of finding one's own creative voice through use of digital media resources. Feel free to leave your thoughts or to browse the research and writing that I've been doing lately. I hope you enjoy!


Where is the fire
That Prometheus stole,
That burning desire
To create and be made whole?
What wonders and myst'ries
Can this Brave New World hold for me?
'Cause I'm standin' at the edge of the sea,
And I'm just learning to swim.

An endless ocean before me,
And the waves a rumblin' by,
I long for solid ground
And miss the clear blue sky
But I'll find myself inside the deep, deep blue.
Yeah, I'm standin' at the end of the sea,
And I'm ready to swim.

I'll set my fears aside
And set fire to the sea
Give life to soul and mem'ry
And let creation break free
And at last, I'll find myself inside the flames
And at last I'll find myself again.

The Spark of Creation

I've been looking for a good rendition of this song, and I think this one does a good job. I first heard this song in "The Pink Palace," an apartment that I lived in while serving in Ukraine as a proselytizing missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My missionary companion was a theater and performing arts major, and he loved to sing. One day, he broke out randomly into this song, and I was mesmerized by this idea of the spark of creation. I've been thinking about creativity lately as I've investigated the influence of digital media on the creative process, and I feel that the message presented in this song encapsulates perfectly some of the ideas that I've been trying to get across in my research. So, please enjoy "Spark of Creation" from Stephen Schwartz's "Children of Eden," performed here by Stefani Wood, and if you're interested in finding out more about my research, check out my previous posts on the right side of the screen! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

EVE

Beyond,beyond

It sounds full of wind and mist, doesn't it

It means other things exist, doesn't it

Beyond, beyond

It says Adam leave your list, doesn't it

Father why does my head feel this joy this dread since the moment I said

Beyond!

I've got an itching on the tips of my fingers

I've got a boiling in the back of my brain

I've got a hunger burning inside me, cannot be denied

I've got feeling that the Father who made us

When he was kindling a pulse in my veins

He left a tiny spark of that fire, smoldering inside
The spark of creation, is flickering within me

The spark of creation,is blazing in my blood

A bit of the fire that lit up the stars

And breathed life into the mud, the first inspiration

The spark creation

I see a mountain and I want to climb it

I see a river and I want to leave shore

Where there was nothing let there be something, something made by me

There's things waiting for me to invent them

There's worlds waiting for me to exploreI am an echo of the eternal cry of
Let there be!

The spark of creation, burning bright within me

The spark of creation, won't let me rest at all

Until I discover or build or uncover

A thing that I can call, my celebration

Of the spark creationThe spark of creation, may it burn forever

The spark creation, I am a keeper of the flame

We think all we want is a lifetime leisure

Each perfect day the sameEndless vacation

Well that's alright if you're a kind crustacean

But when you're born with an imagination

Sooner of later you're feeling the fire get hotter and higher

The spark of creation!!!

At One with our Creative Ideal: Paper-in-a-Post

Just as the sun's rays flow into the figure and become part of his being, so also is the light of creativity an element within every individual, illuminating his soul and urging him toward his dreams.




 

While the Internet and other digital media resources certainly facilitate collaborative efforts and provide a worldwide stage whereon creators can display their work, the creative process remains a largely individual endeavor, as evidenced in Ayn Rand's landmark novel, The Fountainhead.

 

While it will be noted that a vast multitude of history's great thinkers developed and tested their ideas at least to some extent in social spheres, the ideal of creation has always been more so about self-actualization than about yielding to the opinions of others. Rand brilliantly expresses this idea in The Fountainhead through Howard Roark's non-conformist architectural style and unwillingness to compromise his creative integrity. For Roark, architecture is not about pleasing a customer or accruing public acclaim but rather about maintaining one's innovative integrity and staying true to the identity of the creative work as an entity. Peter Keating, whose career represents the diametric opposite of the Roarkian ideal, yet described those who compromise their creative ideal in yielding to others' opinions as follows:

When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass.

 With the birth of the Internet and other digital media resources, we have seen how ideas in their infancy can take on a certain vitality of their own as projects garner support from enthusiasts and collaborators, but at its heart, every creative endeavor represents a piece of the creator's soul. One must first discover it within oneself and then breath life into it through pen or paint. Only then, by virtue of his creativity and willingness to sacrifice, can the Promethean creator set the world afire with his creation. Dr. James Montmarquet, author of "Prometheus: Ayn Rand's Ethic of Creation," remarked that "[t]he architecture of the mind is conceptualization and consciousness; conceptualization is at the heart of any cognitive advance." Ultimately, creativity is a manifestation of the human soul and intellect, and the Internet is simply a facilitator of that creativity, a vehicle through which the creator can express and share his work. The ideas of others will, of course, serve their purpose in shaping a creator's ideas, but the creator must find within himself the courage, integrity, and confidence to go forward with his labors, pursuing his dreams even when everyone else tells him that he can't. 

Moving Toward an Understanding...

So, I've been thinking a bit about my research topic, and it's been interesting to see the different viewpoints come in from friends, peers, enthusiasts, and scholars alike as to how digital media influences creativity. I wanted to post a couple of the responses that I've gotten, in part as a way for me to organize and recall some of the thoughts that I've had lately and in part so that you can hear the different opinions, because I feel like some of them are pretty interesting. Anyway, here's one from my friend, Xiaojia: 

I think it all really comes down to privacy. What do you want to be known, shared, if you want credit, etc. Possibilities are quite endless in both cyberworld and the physical world. And so many things can go between the both. The physical world may give you more privacy than the internet so that could lead to people feeling freer (that doesn't look like a word 8D) so they'd be more open to experiment. But anonymity on the internet could also encourage people to share without feeling the consequences (or at least a decent amount of consequences as a hard copy can create sometimes idk that's open to debate haha).
You should check out postsecret.com if you haven't already!
In the end the internet is just a resource.

There's a couple of ideas here that I want to touch upon: the first is this idea of privacy and expression, an idea that I've been discussing with my mom these past couple days. She's been working to publish a children's story, and I keep telling her that she should post a rough sketch of it on a blog or something so that she can get feedback and start to get people talking about her stuff, but she worries that if she posts it, someone will snatch it up and publish it before she can. That's one part of the internet that you really can't change: it's out there. People will see it. People will interact with it and judge it and change it, and in the end, it might not end up where you had originally intended it to go. I think that's one of the amazing things about the internet, though, as well, that you post something and it takes on a life of its own. If you're writing just for the money, then it's understood that you risk a lot in posting original content, but I've been really impressed at the fact that some bands work on donations alone and are thus able to offer their music for free (or for a price determined by each individual downloader). We are seeing a shift in media rights, an exodus in the direction of freeware and open-source software, and with it, we are witnessing the birth of a different breed of consumerism, a system fueled by the media Medicis, the thousands of private patrons of the arts that each put in their small sums in support of creativity.

Research Questions

Well, I've been throwing around a bunch of ideas for a thesis statement for my upcoming research paper and wanted to get people's takes on the different ideas. Some questions that I've been looking into include:

• What is the value of digital media in the modern creative process? Are the rules of creativity and innovation changing? 
• What is the role of social media in self-actualization?
• What is the power of an individual to bring about change when armed with digital media?

I am leaning heavily toward the first, though all of them are kind of interconnected, so I could touch on all of them potentially. I feel like the first is most pertinent to my novel, The Fountainhead, but at the same time, it goes in opposition to what is said in the book, so my research would represent a refutation of Rand's ideals. Kind of murky waters for the moment being.

Which topic do you like best? Any ideas for a better one?

Living YOUR Dreams

I've had a tough time really trying to express a couple of ideas in my research of The Fountainhead, but I think I've found a quote that kind of sums up a number of my thoughts on the matter:

Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy.   -Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

I've been trying to encapsulate this idea the whole time, the idea that an individual can seek his/her own dreams and still contribute positively to society, the idea that we don't have to chase after the age old aspirations of our grandfathers or follow the trends of our neighbors and friends. Each member of mankind is amazing, and each member of society has something special to contribute, some new innovation, some novel creation. It just doesn't make sense to waste our time living out someone else's second-hand dreams when we might, with a little effort, attain that which we ourselves desire more than anything else.

Streams of Thought and Creation

I've always thought of art as something beyond us all, something that exists independently. It is a twisting, shimmering stream of endless feeling and beauty and understanding and passion from which all great artists have quaffed and from which all innovators and creators draw their substance. It is not so much that an artist truly creates; rather, he dips his brush in the waters of the soul and paints blue deserts and purple trees or hears the song that flows through every living bring and captures just a few notes of it -- not enough to truly know the song, but enough to remind us of the song that we once knew and the song that we will yet one day sing.