Grim,

Less time and less inclination....

I include the following just to give an idea of the sorts of creative industry that used to go on in homes before the advent of the Industrial Revolution (and before everyone jumps down my throat - I don't expect us to return to this type of set-up anytime soon. It's just a look back into the past).

Lord Ernle wrote in "English Farm, Past and Present":

(in cottages)..."Women spun and wove wool into course cloth, and hemp or nettles into linen; men tanned their own leather. The rough tools required for the cultivation of the soil, and the household utensils needed for the comfort of daily life were made at home. In the long winter evenings, farmers and their sons and their servants carved the wooden spoons, the platters, and the beechen bowls...They plaited the osiers and reeds into baskets and into "weeles" for catching fish; they fixed handles to scythes, rakes and other tools...shaped the teeth for rakes and harrows from ash and willow, and hardened them in the fire; cut out the wooden shovels for casting the corn in the granary, fashioned ox-yokes and bows, forks, racks and rack staves; twisted willows into scythe-cradles.....Meanwhile, the women plaited straw or reed for neck collars, stitched and stuffed sheepskin bags for cart-saddles, peeled rushes for wicks and made candles. Thread was often made from nettles. Spinning wheels, distaff and needles were never idle. Home-made cloth and linen supplied all wants. Flaxen linen for board cloths, sheets, shirts, smocks or shirts and towels, as the napkins were called..."

These people are now often thought of as unskilled and ignorant - we are the ones who would be helpless without our support network of technology.

WOW! I bet you all feel warm and fuzzy inside:) Dont worry.....the mirror will be there in the morning:)

LEAP:)

True enough Poirot, I recall my mother's hands were rarely still; even watching TV she would knit or crochet.
I think another angle of the creativity puzzle may be education. While I am a strong advocate of education (I believe everyone on social security benefits should earn their pay, through education) there is some truth in the adage: those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Education is -in the areas of craft, at least- in a sense showing people how to do things parrot fashion, that a creative person did naturally; although of course there are empirical gains to be made -by the more creative ones.
Does our society encourage creativity, or stifle creativity for the sake of uniformity?
It seems only in the field of information technology are mavericks just starting to be appreciated. Certainly climate change sceptics claim the process of peer review seems (to their eyes) to keep climate scientists in line.

Wow Grim you've mentioned one of my favourite Science fiction writers in Clifford Simak. His title Way Station sums up the relative position of human existence in the general scheme of things rather well.

An open mind is a basic requirement in creativity. My own personel understanding of the creative process is limited to the artistic level. If only I had more time. Supplying the basics of life for my family has pretty much removed any opportunity I now have to access the neural passages that I have developed for the purpose of artistic innovation and creativity over the years. Genetic dispostion allowed me to discover that I possessed such neural passages early in life.

Even music appears to be a product of mass production with software available that does it for you. If I can draw an analogy, it is not unlike a child whom thinks that milk comes out of carton,,having no understanding of the cows input. Musical creativity is now supplied by software instead of from within the musician.The process now begins and ends for the most part externally.

Imagine if you will a peice of software that paints a masterpeice for you.

How long would it take before the capacity to create,disappeared altogether. 1 generation or 2, thats about all.

My bass player whom had his teeth kicked in milking cows this week has been made redundant by loops.(Pre-recorded snippets of someone else,s creativity). I am fearful for his sanity and his physical health, and his analogue talent for real time creativity(rare in humans),is no longer useful or utilised. Soon to disappear altogether I fear.

thinker 2,

There is a pervasive disconnection in the minds of Western man between the origins of produce and its relationship with the consumer.
David Suzuki tells the story of a Japanese teacher who was shocked to realise that her very young charges thought fish just appeared in a tray covered with plastic.

To be creative in times past was part and parcel of survival. It was natural in the sense that it was organic.
Children watched, helped and emulated their adult mentors and so the skill was learned and in time expanded upon.
They also felt a strong connection to the skills they were learning and to the people who were teaching them because those who were involved were connected in myriad ways to the same cycle of life.

Poirot, what your Lord Ernie was describing would have been very
much about necessity being the mother of invention.

Even now, go onto some more isolated farms in the WA backblocks and
you would be amazed what they make, right there in their farm
workshops etc.

To survive that kind of lifestyle, you have to be practical and
creative, or you won't make it.

Those who don't, are better off heading to the cities for a factory
or office job. Not much has changed in that regard.