This post is a response to a question posed in its full format as follows: “Why is it that the vast majority of humans don’t have enough ability or potential to make great new inventions or come up with great new ideas?”
I don’t believe that’s true.
Humans have far more potential than they are often given credit for by mostly misanthropic cynics.
We see stories of extraordinary inventions by otherwise “ordinary” people all the time.
18 Random Invention Ideas That Made Millions | Cad Crowd
10 Amazing Inventions We Don’t Appreciate Enough
8 Famous Inventions Inspired by Love
The list goes endlessly on where individuals have succeeded against all odds to bring their ideas to life and benefit millions along with themselves.
The tool you’ve used to justify a disparaging view of your fellow humans results from random convergences of creativity by individuals with initiative and the coordinated inventiveness of enterprise initiatives — all contributing to this massive system of human interconnectedness.
As we know it today, the internet could only exist with hundreds of millions of imaginative people contributing their ideas to what it is and what it can do.
In a world where we become addicted to the hoopla of audacious behaviour, we tend to overlook the ordinary, everyday creativity of individuals focused on more mundane challenges, such as how to survive.
There is an entire genre of everyday creativity where people devise unique solutions to everyday issues, like using pasta to avoid being burned while lighting a candle.
Or using a ceramic coffee mug to sharpen scissors:
49 Life Hacks You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner
200 Incredible Life Hacks That Make Life So Much Easier — LifeHack
Human inventiveness is everywhere. Amazon alone has over one dozen books on the phenomenon we’ve been referring to as “Life Hacks” for well over one decade now:
The problem isn’t that people aren’t creative or lack potential for inventiveness; people overlook it all the time because they’re more fixated on the spectacular inventions that generate buzz, and that’s often a consequence of financial success more so than creative success.
After all, Pet Rocks was not a “creative invention,” but it was audacious and made a fortune for the person who concocted the scheme. People worldwide marvelled not at the product but at its remarkable marketing genius.
One of the most significant barriers to creativity is not the gazillion ideas everyone has almost every day but essentially other people’s cynical perceptions of them — either due to a bias toward the individual, their concept, or the critic’s insecurity.
I also believe the misanthropic attitude displayed within this question is a significant barrier to humanity’s ability to achieve its potential.
This is a self-serving question in which the cynical view of humanity is an excuse to avoid the hard work of rising above the fray by feigning its disdain for the rabble.
Another significant barrier to human creativity is the follow-through, which requires a committed effort to manifest ideas in reality. Often, that barrier is a consequence of time and/or resources. Still, it can also be due to harmfully pessimistic and unsupportive attitudes from others and a lack of stubbornness to fight resistance and plow ahead until the “only true form of failure in life” is arrived at by dying.
One is much better served by focusing on how one can be creative for one’s benefit rather than projecting one’s insecurities onto humanity with a misanthropic attitude.
We are an incredibly creative species. Everyone is capable of creative endeavour if secure enough in themselves or are free enough to indulge in their creative dreams to pursue them.
Instead of worrying about the “vast majority of humans,” worry about how you can be creative for yourself. By focusing on your creativity, you’ll find your mind opening up to possibilities you never imagined while being surprised by how incredibly creative the people you see all around you are.
Temet Nosce
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