In my book ‘It’s time to imagine harder’, my hypothesis was that bringing the creative consciousness back to work is a clear path to unlocking the unexpected and unanticipated. A way to sense into and feel for the unseen. The creative consciousness - which has a proclivity or impulse to operate comfortably even enthusiastically with the unknown — can dream of the undreamt as if were soaking in a warm bath of ambiguity.

The creative consciouness ambles around in the new territories and terrains for which the old ways of knowing and being do not fit — they are not big enough to make sense of the territory. They are The Old. The new is The New.

The creative consciousness is the thing that fosters the accidental discoveries, and that fosters unintended breakthroughs that challenge conventional boundaries. The creative consciousness is a catalyst for organic evolution within any effort for which uncertainty looms large.

When we embrace uncertainty, we open that new terrain, providing avenues for originality that rigid ideation frameworks often obscure.

This episode of the podcast gets into the sometimes painful but always fascinating struggle by which we try to maintain the creative spirit in an increasingly optimized world.

When the denizens of efficiency and productivity are the ones who set the rules, it can feel like a losing battle to keep the spark of innovation alive. But what if we flipped the script? What if we embraced the chaos, the messiness, and the unexpected as essential ingredients for creativity?

The Near Future Laboratory studio is currently going through a fairly extensive renovation.

I had to move everything out.

Everything.

In the months leading up to demolition work starting, I would go back there, fully intent on getting started on packing.

I’d have a look. Settle on a plan. And then I’d turn right on my heels and walk out, or put the unconstructed box back on the pile of 100 boxes I had ordered, and sit down at one of the desks and start working on something entirely different.

To some, the studio felt like a place of chaos, jumbles of ideas and possibilities emanating from scores of books, pinned-up index cards, notebooks cracked open to a page, software running on various homebrew contrivances, disassembled electronics.

It’d be suggested that it should be straightened up, better organized, get rid of the clutter, and so on.

It felt like chaos to me often enough, as well.

But it was a chaos that I had come to feel effervesced possibility.

The magic was in the choas of ideas in collision, stacked around and amongst themselves, radiating a kind of emergence of the unexpected elements joined together like a world becoming.

In this episode, I chat with the guys at ‘Normals,’ a creative studio that thrives on the unexpected, the illogical, and the beautifully tangentially inflected. They argue that true innovation isn’t about relentlessly pursuing efficiency, but about deliberately disrupting it – a vital conversation for anyone wrestling with the pressures of modern work.

This episode is a vital discussion for anyone who believes that the creative spirit is worth preserving, even in the face of relentless optimization. It’s a call to arms for those who feel that the relentless march of efficiency is stifling their creativity and and ultimately that thing we loosely call ‘innovation’ — the space where sense can be made out of chaos and confusion.

So have a listen as we have a coffee and chat. Come along and see how ‘Normals’ cultivates a creative environment built on embracing ambiguity, challenging assumptions, and ultimately, celebrating the power of human imagination to create something truly new.

I hope this episode serves as a reminder that sometimes the best solutions are found not in perfectly polished plans, but in delightfully messy explorations.

Very much like the editing of this podcast.

Oh, one last thing to say: this podcast, the newsletter, everything that goes on here is not free. It takes time and costs money.

If the podcast and the community have value to you, please consider supporting it.

There are three ways you can do that: first, is to become a professional tier supporter on Patreon. That’s easy. Just go over to Patreon and become a supporter.

The second way is to buy the books and zines over at the shop.

The third way is to hire me to work with you, your team or your organization. There are a multitude of shapes that can take, from workshops to commissioned projects to engaging me as a consultant.

You can find more about that over on the website in the services section or simply book a call with me.