Creativity

We live in an age that claims to value innovation above all else. Every corporation talks about creativity, every government invests in "creative industries," every university promises to cultivate "creative thinking." Yet we systematically starve the very source of creativity itself.

This isn't just about artists struggling to make ends meet—though that's where the symptoms are most visible. This is about a fundamental disconnection from the creative force that drives all genuine transformation, all real innovation, all meaningful change.

I write this as someone who has lived in both worlds: seven years in art school in Ukraine, then engineering school in Canada. I've seen how creativity flows when it's honored, and how it withers when it's reduced to a commodity. I've experienced the raw power of authentic creative expression, and the frustration of watching systems that claim to value innovation while systematically undermining its source.

What started as a personal exploration of why I couldn't find my place as a creative engineer has become a deeper inquiry into how we might transform our entire approach to creativity, innovation, and systemic change. This piece traces that journey—from the individual artist's struggle to a vision of collective creative sovereignty.

Because here's what I've come to understand: the way we treat creativity isn't just about arts policy. It's about the kind of society we're creating, the kind of problems we can solve, and the kind of future we can imagine together.

The creative crisis is a sovereignty crisis. And the solution isn't just about funding artists—it's about fundamentally reimagining how creative intelligence can transform our systems from the inside out.

The Engineer-Artist Paradox

I became an engineer because I deeply love creativity. I always saw engineering as a higher form of art and a potential for creative holistic transformation. I never worked as an engineer, because actual creativity is not valued in that field once you leave university and start working in the real world. We don't create engineers to change reality—we create them to sustain a broken system.

Before moving to Canada, even though I was already a proper math-physics-science geek, I actually never considered becoming anything other than an artist. I had no idea what I would be doing, but I knew deeply that my life was tightly interconnected with creativity and art.

I did 7 years of art school in Ukraine. I loved the depth and simplicity of expression that art can provide. I loved the consistent bohemian lifestyle, being completely immersed in the flow of Life and precious moments of deep listening to my own soul. This is what art gave me.

I was very busy with my completely freedom-inspired schedule. I don't know where people got the idea that artists are lazy, useless, and waste too much time. Art is actually very demanding, intensive, complex, and energy-draining work.

In terms of inner energy, responsibility, and commitment, an artist does not contribute less than an engineer to our society and collective well-being. Actually, most likely, it's the opposite in the world we live in today.

The Sacred Discipline of Creative Expression

Art showed me the real discipline of pure intuition and creative insight. It also showed me how to embody that intuition into an object, an image, a painting, a sculpture, or an idea. When you do art, you take time to intimately communicate with your own creation. You make love to your own genius. When you express yourself creatively, your soul talks to you directly. The simplicity of it is truly mind-blowing.

The value that art holds is priceless. In terms of healing, transformation, and regeneration, it is potentially the most powerful tool we have today—individually and collectively. Art has no borders or favorite language. When people can access their innate creativity source and bring this into our physical reality, they are literally performing magic in real life. They can do miracles.

They can heal people, objects, spaces, and even our collective soul simply by sharing their art and authentic creative power. By the way, creative power is almost the same thing as your sexual energy. This is why art is so sensual, deep, and transcendent. Creative people don't play with the Universal Mind or Higher Consciousness—they play with raw and chaotic sexual energy.

It's not coming from the Universe, Heavens, and channeling of cosmic energies. It's coming from the roots and the soil, from the depth of our own body and Earth. From the collective Womb, from the Unknown and the Mystery. This is not energy that comes to you from the outside or to your Crown. It's something that arises from the deepest parts of your human soul and rises up from your own deepest Root of Existence.

This is why true creativity cannot be stolen or replicated. Because it doesn't live in the shared Field of consciousness. It lives in the depth of your physical body and in your human experience.

Everything can (and ideally should) be done with true art. Cooking, accounting, engineering, teaching—literally everything! But so few things are actually done this way today. Even in purely artistic fields, creativity seems to be repressed, censored, and standardized for some reason.

It actually makes me deeply sad and very angry. We are losing at an exponential rate our capacity to access our authentic creativity and express it to the world.

Poor Creativity

We pay for food and house.

For planes and phones.

For pipelines and new mines.

We invest in more data, more virtual

And more super artificially smart.

We pay. We consume. We restart.

And there is creativity and art

that no one cares to pay for.

Because it's not a real job.

Because you can't steal it or eat it.

Because it's just a pleasure.

And we are not entitled

to such things in this life.

We need to suffer first

at the job we despise

To be able to buy our time

for poor creativity and art.

The Starving Artist Mythology

The archetype of the starving artist makes no sense to me, but fuck, it is so present today. It's everywhere. We all have this weird part of us that believes that if we proclaim ourselves as full-time artists, we probably won't know what real wealth and abundance are.

Art does not feed and does not heat.

Artists should struggle to survive. Because doing art is not a real job—it's a hobby. This is why most artists have a second job today. Because even they don't believe anymore in the value of what they create. They don't know how to sell it to people who simply don't get it and don't value it. They see it as a privilege to be able to freely create. They think they are lucky to be able to do art. They work at other jobs they openly hate to fund their artistic expression and share it with us.

This is astonishingly clear when you observe the music industry.

Most musicians cannot survive only on what they create, even if they invest very seriously their time, energy, and resources into their music. But this has nothing to do with a lack of dedication or time investment in what they do. There are many amazing and even well-known musicians who have literally financed their own creations, shared them for free, and never received any recognition for their efforts from people who actually listen to them.

Because today we completely disconnect the art from the artist. We have created so many intermediaries between the creator and the creation itself that we just don't give a fuck about it anymore. We don't care who created what and who is being paid for what.

When you listen to a song on Spotify that moves your soul, it brings you to your own depth of human experience. It makes you travel to other worlds. It makes you cry or laugh. It gives you an energetic experience of some sort. This—this is worth something. This has value. And this also has a cost.

You consume a song for, let's say, 5 minutes and you have a truly transcendent experience in the moment. It inspires you, modifies your mood, and could even influence your day. Has this ever happened to you?

After that experience, have you ever considered what you paid to the artist themselves for the experience they created for you? If we bring this into the basics of energetic exchange language: How much did you actually pay for what you received as a creation from the creator? Do you really believe that what you experienced in terms of energy for those 5 minutes is actually equivalent to what the artist received from you in return?

Probably not. But no one seems to care.

This is not okay. This is also why there are so many addictions, depressions, and everything else in the artistic fields. Because artists give and share too much of their pure creative energy with others, but they don't receive that energy in return from people who consume their art. Eventually, they become empty from the inside. Because the energetic balance is fucked.

And the only ways they have to become coherent again is to either stop doing art or find a way to deal with the emptiness inside that it creates to do their art for free. Addictions and drugs are a fairly effective and accessible tool to fill that energetic emptiness inside an artist as a result of our ungratefulness for what they do for us.

Plus, a person who has tasted the real expression of divine creativity inside themselves can never stop doing art. It's stronger than them. Creativity possesses you once you've tasted its true frequency.

We, as a society and consumers, make artists complete addicts because we don't compensate them fairly for what they're giving to us. We literally steal their pure creative energy and then blame, shame, and judge them for being too empty from the inside afterward.

If the artist is just bad and no one actually listens to them, they probably won't suffer the same way. They'll be over this very quickly and probably start doing something else. They won't feel empty inside. They might be sad about being bad at art, but energetically speaking, they're safe. Because no one is actually consuming their creative energy. So the balance is fair. No one cares, so no one pays for it. The systemic coherence is maintained.

The problem is when we do take something from the artist, but the artist doesn't receive the same from us. This is where the balance is broken. This is where it's actually unfair.

The True Cost of Creative Healing

Let's imagine your tooth hurts really badly. You cannot do anything but think about that pain. How much are you willing to pay the dentist to do something for 1 hour in your mouth to make the pain stop? What's your price? What does the dentist charge for that service? He gives you something and you give him something. This is what we call an energetic transaction.

Now, imagine your soul is hurting. You are sad and miserable in your bed and you actually deeply suffer emotionally and mentally. You instinctually put on a Spotify playlist of your favorite 'healing' music and you just let yourself be for 1 hour. Afterward, you feel better. Somehow the music helped you process your pain and made your nervous system more regulated.

How much are you willing to pay for that 1-hour playlist? How much are you actually paying? How much are the artists getting from that amount that you're willing to pay or that you're paying for this therapy session of your soul?

The distortion between those two examples is astonishing. But in reality, this is exactly how it is. Few minor differences, but the mechanics and dynamics are the same.

People who perform the art that can talk to your soul are actually doing healing work for you in the exact same way the dentist does. But somehow in our collective consciousness, we don't attribute the same value to both of those capacities. Why?

Are teeth more important than our soul? Is your physical pain bigger and more valuable than your emotional or mental pain?

Did the dentist work harder to provide you his service? Did he really?

Some would say yes. Because he did 30 years of expensive studies and his life is probably very boring. So he's entitled to be considered someone who works really hard and whose work is worth paying a lot for. But when you pay for your teeth to be fixed, you don't pay for his studies. You pay for the 1 hour you're spending with him when you need it.

Why don't you pay the artist the same when they give you 1 hour of their energy?

The effort artists put into their work is probably even greater than that of dentists. Because the artist usually doesn't have the same security, stability, recognition, and perceived value in society for their creations and hard work. What it takes for an artist to create something in terms of energy is way greater and bigger than what it takes for a dentist to fix your teeth.

Yes, it's way more complicated and complex than that. Both dental care and the music industry are very different topics and have many other industries attached to them that play a big role in the overall energetic architecture. But the essence of it is actually very simple.

We don't value the power that creativity holds. We don't invest fairly in the things we consume. We don't compensate artists enough for what we truly take from them.

Innovation Without Soul

I became an engineer to become a better artist.

What I wanted was to combine the healing power of our innate creative energy with the real world we are creating for ourselves as engineers. But I failed. Because I have no idea how to find a way to express my creativity in a technology-driven world. I don't know how to talk to the soul of machines and robots. I don't know how to access our unlimited sexual creative power virtually and in the cloud.

We think that engineering is creative today, but it's not. Engineering is mental.

However, we are all artists no matter what. We all have a deep need to express our creative energy to the world. We are all creators. Some of us create from our head, some from our heart, some with our hands, some from our ego, and some from our soul. No one is better than the other. They are all needed and important. But they also should all be equally valued and compensated as well.

A creation done from the mind is not less or more valuable than a creation done from the soul or with hands.

I don't believe we can say we're doing innovation or that we're an innovative society if we're not accessing the authentic source of innate creativity in each being. If we can't all express ourselves creatively, freely, and unconditionally in whatever field we're working in, we're not even close to the concept of innovation.

Innovation is impossible without creativity.

True creativity is impossible without us actually paying for it.

If we don't value art, creation, and creativity in this society in their basic forms, we cannot pretend to do this elsewhere.

We cannot be a creative and innovative country if all our artists are struggling to properly eat and heat themselves. It's an illusion that by investing in technology-driven innovation, you actually invest in creativity and meaningful change.

You do invest in exponential technology development, administrative nonsense, and the growth of virtual reality. But you don't do much for our physical reality, our collective soul, and the pure expression of our authentic, creative, and unlimited human power.

Systemic efficiency, coherence, resilience, productivity, and all the rest are only possible by accessing our own source of creativity and by deeply recognizing the real value of the art others are creating for us.

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Part 2: Creativity as Systemic Transformation

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But here's what I've come to understand since writing those words: the problem isn't just individual. It's not just about paying artists fairly or recognizing creativity's value in isolation. It's about recognizing that creativity is the fundamental force behind all systemic transformation, all innovation, all genuine progress.

Creativity is political. Creativity is social. Creativity is the engine of sovereignty.

When I look at the current state of our societies—the crises in democracy, the environmental collapse, the disconnection between people and place—I see a profound creativity crisis. We've systematized ourselves away from our creative source, and now we're trying to solve creative problems with purely analytical tools. It's like trying to paint with a calculator.

The real question isn't just "How do we value artists?" It's "How do we create systems that honor the creative force as the primary driver of collective transformation?"

The Collective Creative Wound

A nation disconnected from their creativity cannot claim their full power or sovereignty. Culture is our collective identity—if we don't value it, we risk losing it. A lost people is a weak people. A weak people is easily manipulated and corrupted because they can be made to fear very easily.

This is why the systematic devaluation of creativity isn't just an economic issue—it's a sovereignty issue. When we underfund arts education, when we tell artists to get "real jobs," when we treat creativity as luxury rather than necessity, we're systematically weakening our collective capacity for innovation, adaptation, and transformation.

Every authoritarian regime in history has understood this. Control the artists, control the narrative. Starve the creative class, starve the imagination of what's possible. Make creativity a privilege rather than a birthright, and you make transformation itself a privilege.

Networks of Creative Resistance

But here's what excites me: we're also living in a moment of unprecedented possibility for creative collaboration. The same technologies that have disrupted traditional creative industries have also enabled new forms of creative networking and systemic innovation.

Imagine if we approached regional development, economic policy, and social transformation from a fundamentally creative perspective. Not just "adding arts" to existing systems, but designing systems that operate from creative principles: emergence over control, collaboration over competition, regeneration over extraction.

What would it look like to build innovation ecosystems that put creativity at the center? Where artists, engineers, farmers, policy makers, and community organizers work together as creative collaborators, each bringing their unique form of creative intelligence to collective challenges?

Rich Creativity

We invest in minds that dream.

In hands that heal and build.

In voices that sing truth.

We fund the deep work,

the slow magic of our emergence,

the patient alchemy of transformation.

We pay for pure joy.

For beauty that stops time.

For stories that remake worlds.

Because creativity feeds power.

Because art births innovation.

Because culture creates wealth.

We embrace ourselves

into innate brilliance,

into collective genius,

into systems that matter.

The artist eats well,

thrives and creates from overflow.

The community flourishes

and dreams bigger dreams.

This is the economics

Of creative sovereignty:

Where our contribution  

Elevates all of creation.

The Abundance Economics of Creativity

Here's the radical economic truth that mainstream thinking misses: creativity doesn't consume resources—it multiplies them. When you invest in a creative ecosystem, you don't just get art back. You get innovation, you get community resilience, you get cultural identity, you get economic diversification, you get social cohesion.

One musician doesn't just create songs—they create venues, sound engineers, producers, promoters, cultural tourism, local pride, and inspiration for the next generation. One filmmaker doesn't just make movies—they create entire production ecosystems, skill development, storytelling capacity, regional identity, and economic multiplier effects.

But this only works when the creative investment reaches a critical mass. When you fund individual artists in isolation, you get individual results. When you fund creative ecosystems, you get exponential returns that cascade across every sector of society.

This is why regions that invest systematically in creative infrastructure consistently outperform in innovation metrics, economic resilience, and quality of life indicators. They understand that creativity is infrastructure—as essential as roads, electricity, or internet connectivity.

Interdisciplinary Creative Intelligence

This is where my background in engineering serves my artistic soul. I've seen how the most innovative technical solutions emerge when diverse creative intelligences intersect. The breakthrough happens not in isolation but in the spaces between disciplines, between ways of knowing, between different forms of creative expression.

The artist brings intuitive intelligence. The engineer brings systematic intelligence. The farmer brings ecological intelligence. The community organizer brings social intelligence. The policy maker brings structural intelligence. When these creative forces truly collaborate—not just coordinate, but create together—magic happens.

But this requires a fundamental shift in how we organize knowledge, funding, and decision-making. It requires systems designed for creative emergence rather than administrative efficiency. It requires recognizing that the most complex challenges of our time are fundamentally creative challenges.

Ecosystem Design Principles

Building transformative creative ecosystems isn't about good intentions—it's about understanding the patterns that make creativity flourish at scale. After studying high-performing creative regions worldwide, I've identified several key design principles:

Diversity as Strength: The most innovative ecosystems bring together the widest range of creative intelligences. Not just artists and technologists, but farmers, healers, craftspeople, storytellers, and system thinkers. Monocultures of creativity lead to limited solutions.

Permeable Boundaries: Creative ecosystems thrive when disciplines, sectors, and communities can cross-pollinate freely. The magic happens at the intersections—between art and technology, between tradition and innovation, between local wisdom and global knowledge.

Patient Capital: Creative ecosystems require investment that thinks in decades, not quarters. They need funding structures that support emergence rather than demanding predetermined outcomes. This means risk capital for experiments, long-term support for capacity building, and rewards for collaborative rather than competitive behavior.

Distributed Leadership: Top-down creative initiatives consistently fail. Thriving ecosystems have multiple centers of creative leadership, each serving different functions but connected through shared vision and mutual support networks.

Regenerative Feedback Loops: The healthiest creative ecosystems create conditions where success generates more success. Where one person's creative breakthrough creates opportunities for others. Where individual expression strengthens collective capacity.

Creating the Systems We Desire

Here's the radical truth: we are creators. All of us. And that means we can collaborate to create any system we desire.

The current system isn't natural law—it's a creative artifact. It was imagined, designed, and built by human creative intelligence. Which means it can be reimagined, redesigned, and rebuilt by human creative intelligence.

But transformation at this scale requires what I call "applied creativity"—creativity that moves beyond individual expression to collective creation. It requires artists who understand systems, engineers who understand culture, farmers who understand economy, and policy makers who understand the creative process.

The Creative Multiplier Effect

Here's where the strategic power becomes undeniable: properly designed creative ecosystems don't just add value—they multiply it exponentially across every domain they touch.

When a region invests in creative infrastructure, innovation metrics consistently improve across ALL sectors. Manufacturing becomes more adaptive. Agriculture develops new regenerative approaches. Technology develops more human-centered solutions. Healthcare integrates more holistic methodologies. Education becomes more engaging and effective.

This isn't correlation—it's causation. Creative thinking is transferable intelligence. When you strengthen creative capacity in one domain, it strengthens problem-solving capacity everywhere. A musician's understanding of improvisation informs an engineer's approach to complex systems. A visual artist's spatial intelligence enhances an urban planner's design process. A storyteller's narrative thinking transforms how organizations communicate their mission.

But the multiplier effect only activates when creative practitioners are integrated into broader innovation processes, not marginalized from them. This requires intentional design of collaborative structures where different forms of creative intelligence can inform each other.

Creative Leadership for Systemic Change

The ecosystems I'm describing require a different kind of leadership—what I call "creative stewardship." These leaders don't control creative processes; they create conditions where creativity can flourish and self-organize.

Creative stewards understand that their role is to:

• Remove barriers rather than impose direction

• Connect diverse intelligences rather than homogenize approaches

• Nurture emergence rather than manage outcomes

• Build trust networks rather than hierarchical structures

• Invest in relationships rather than just projects

This kind of leadership emerges from creative practice itself. Artists understand emergence because they work with it daily. They know that the most powerful creations come from a dance between intention and surrender, between structure and spontaneity. These are exactly the leadership capacities needed for navigating complex systemic transformation.

The Politics of Creative Sovereignty

This is why I now see my work in the field of creativity not just as economic development strategy, but as cultural sovereignty work. When a region develops its creative capacity—when it builds systems that support creative collaboration across sectors—it builds its mastery and ability for self-determination.

A community that can imagine together can create together. A community that can create together can transform together. A community that can transform together cannot be controlled from the outside.

This is the political power of creativity that scares systems of domination. Creative communities are ungovernable in the best sense—they govern themselves through collaborative creation rather than top-down control.

Regenerative Creative Systems

The systems we create from this place don't just extract value—they generate it. They don't just consume creativity—they cultivate it. They don't just use artists—they create conditions where everyone can access their creative source and contribute to collective creation.

These are systems designed like ecosystems: diverse, interconnected, regenerative. Where the success of one enhances the success of all. Where creativity flows like water, finding its way to where it's needed most.

Signs of Creative Ecosystem Emergence

How do you recognize when a transformative creative ecosystem is beginning to form? After working with emerging creative regions, I've learned to look for specific patterns that indicate healthy ecosystem development:

Cross-Pollination Projects: When artists start collaborating with farmers, when engineers start working with musicians, when policy makers start consulting storytellers—these unexpected partnerships signal that boundaries are becoming permeable and creative intelligence is cross-fertilizing.

Spontaneous Innovation: When creative solutions start emerging that no one planned but everyone recognizes as brilliant. When the ecosystem itself starts generating ideas that surpass what individual participants could have imagined alone.

Magnetic Attraction: When creative people start moving to the region not for specific jobs but because they sense opportunity and creative energy. When the ecosystem begins attracting the talent it needs without formal recruitment.

Economic Coherence: When creative activities start generating sustainable revenue not through external grants but through internal circulation of value. When the creative ecosystem becomes economically self-sustaining while maintaining its creative integrity.

Cultural Confidence: When the region starts telling its own story instead of comparing itself to other places. When local creative expression becomes a source of pride rather than insecurity.

System Integration: When creativity stops being a separate sector and starts being integrated into how every sector operates. When creative thinking becomes the default approach to regional challenges.

These signs don't happen overnight, but when they start appearing together, they indicate that something profound is shifting—that a region is transitioning from consuming creativity to generating it, from extracting value to cultivating it.

The Invitation

So this is my invitation to anyone reading this: recognize your creative power. Not just if you're an "artist," but if you're human. Recognize that every system you participate in was created by ordinary human creativity, which means it can be transformed by the same creative ability as well.

And then ask yourself: What would I create if I truly believed in my creative power? What would we create together if we truly collaborated from our creative source?

The answers to those questions are the seeds of the systems we actually want to live in. And the beautiful truth is: we already have everything we need to plant them.

We just need to remember that we are creators, and start acting like it.