Innovation is a collective phenomenon that happens between, not within, brains. Therein lies a lesson for the modern world.*
Matt Ridley

The imagination is more like the moon than the sun because it is dependent on another thing and exists, in no pure state by itself … . It needs and openness to whatever is there at the moment and to not reject whatever is there because of any formulaic concept from the past. The imagination allows me to die a credence and an integrity to any existence outside of myself.**
Michael Burkard

But it is hard to remain open to the other,
Demanding and tiring,
And yet we know this is where our future lies.

We might say,
The heroic life involves being lost in the other:
Once across [the threshold],
the hero is swallowed by the unknown,
be it a whale, a wolf,
A sarcophagus, or a cave.^

The same is not enough for us,
Something dies in us before we die,
But when we press on, if
we press on, then
I sense we may discover life’s larger topography
of grace and forgiveness and patience
and love and goodness
and compassion.

*Matt Ridley’s How Innovation Works;
**Mary Ruefle’s On Imagination;
^Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life.