The most basic definition of wholeness is simply 51 percent […] where you give more than you take.*
(Erwin McManus)

Beyond eating, sleeping and reproducing, Ken Robinson names three more processes in our lives:

The first is imagination: the ability to bring to mind events and ideas that are not present to our senses. The second is creativity: the process of having original ideas that have value. The third is innovation: the process of putting original ideas into practice.**

Each of these are present in every person waiting to be developed, we only need to give ourselves to experiences.

Austin Kleon confesses why he continues to blog after fifteen years: he wants to leave a trace, figure out what he has to say, and he has found that he likes it.

We can translate these into all the activities we choose to get up to.

Furthermore, they espouse the best ways to live our lives in a meaningful way, as M. C Richards intimates:

For I know of no trouble in life which does not stand as a counterpart to some positive capacity.^

Something we each find ourselves energised in doing can make a difference for the better in someone’s world.

Though, there’s always risk involved in switching 49/51 for 51/49, as Richards continues, taking us beyond the familiar or comfortable:

Life always lies at some frontier, making sorties into the unknown. Its path leads always farther into truth. We cannot call it trackless waste, because as the path appears, it seems to have lain there awaiting our steps. We walk a magic carpet which, as we move, unrolls. Thus the surprises, thus the continuity.^

Where to begin?

If Ken Robinson is right – and I believe he is – if we want to innovate, we need to be creative, and if we want to be creative, we need to be imaginative, and if we want to be imaginative, we can’t do much better than follow Richards’ counsel:

Use your senses.  Open your eyes, your ears, your smeller, your taste buds, your skin, your throat, your lungs, your heart, your blood, your interstices.  Listen.  If we listen, we will not have to ask.  If we listen, we will find ourselves at the centre of the entertainment.^

And we have all today to play with.

*From Erwin McManus’ Uprising;
**From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds;
^From M. C. Richards’ Centering.