Won’t Vision Curb Our Talent and Creativity?
People I know who claim to have a vision think there is no need to think anymore – they think they are done. They are no longer creative, they just parrot known answers. That can’t be good?If we see our vision as something dead, something completely finished, well yes, in that case our vision could certainly curb creativity making us mindless. It is a real danger that must be avoided.
In that regard, the idea that we have all answers in hand, and that the answers we have are flawless and beyond improvement would preclude need for us to think. That inclination, too, must be avoided. To take advice from one of history’s mroe creative souls, consider William Blake’s admonition that: “Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.”
If we can see our vision as a flexible tool that we use in the task of moving forward, then our vision instead invites creativity.
We must be creative not only in applying the vision to understand how the present falls short of our desires, but also in using the vision to understand the broad contours of the future and the ways in which our actions might bring the future closer.
Vision conceived as a tool must be continually refined in light of new experiences, and this too invites creativity. Good vision is not dogma. It is insight, and insight grows via new experience. In short, sectarian vision curbs creativity but flexible vision conceived not as an end but as a means invites and welcomes creativity.