The Elastic Mind

Earlier this year there was an exhibit at MOMA in New York called Design and the Elastic Mind and it got me to thinking about how much we are forced to adapt and be flexible to the constant change that is occurring all around us. As the exhibit description so aptly puts it, "Individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace—working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration."

The value of this elasticity of the mind cannot be underestimated as we are inundated with new data, new technology, new ideas and ultimately new possibilities. While we all have some motivating force that drives us, I believe that for many the inability to act comes from the sheer magnitude of possibilities. It is not because we are lacking inspiration or desire that we fail to move but rather because we face too many possibilities of in what direction we should move. Some people cope with this noise better than others, and for some it is easy to focus based on their pure obsession or passion with a topic. This blog is for everyone else, who is interested in learning from and being inspired by a wide array of topics from a wide array of disciplines.