rich gold June 6
A quote from Rich Gold’s (pseudonym… Goldstein was his real last name) book, The Plenitude. Rich finished the book shortly before his death in January 2003 and I consider myself lucky to have spoken with him during a private lecture at RIT. The book was only
published as a PDF, made available on his website. I checked the site today and it looks like it’s down. This is the quote:
There are cultures where telling stories means re-telling the same story that your parents told you. The power of the story, in fact, comes from the retelling of it over and over again. In its consistency, its sameness, it provides the eternal. In our culture, this is illegal. It is called copyright infringement and you can be fined or even sent to jail. Each story must be new and different. In some cases it cannot even reference an existing story (just try using The Lion King in a movie you are making and see how unbroken the circle of life can be.) The eternalness in our culture comes from everything being ever new.
This concept of creativity is the core of our culture. Here, where we live, we must make new things to get money to buy other things, including food and shelter. And since we can’t make what others are making by law and by the laws of the market place it is only through creativity and innovation that we survive.
Other sections of Rich’s book talk about the power of creativity within our culture. Tell a parent that their child is “so creative!” and watch their face light up. There is a memorial site with postings from Rich’s friends, as well as some pictures of him. I’ve also made a copy of The Plenitude available here for download [8.5 MB].