An extended creative essay for The Creative Process and One Planet podcast

Growing up in Zimbabwe to British parents, Doris Lessing often imagined herself into the landscape of modern England. In it, she saw the possibility of freedom, the horizon of an emergent literary life, and the promise of a prodigal return to the homeland.

The real issue with the island was his wife. She had never known it as well, perhaps not appreciated it as much either. She was a bit slower now, her memory was no longer what it once was. As much as it pained him to admit it, he knew that this could be their last trip.

Etiuda Wspomnienia Klaudia Folga
from our Collaborators at Łódź Film School

Psychologist
Author of Emotional Intelligence · Optimal
Ecological Intelligence · Destructive Emotions

Emotional intelligence is how you manage yourself and how you handle your relationships. Are you aware of what you're feeling? Can you use that awareness to handle emotions, to be positive, to be sure your upsetting emotions don't overwhelm you? This then helps you to tune into other people's emotions, to be empathic, and to put that all together to manage relationships well. It turns out that's what makes an engineer highly effective. I think it's what makes anyone highly effective. 

Psychologist
Author of Emotional Intelligence · Optimal
Ecological Intelligence · Destructive Emotions

Emotional intelligence is how you manage yourself and how you handle your relationships. Are you aware of what you're feeling? Can you use that awareness to handle emotions, to be positive, to be sure your upsetting emotions don't overwhelm you? This then helps you to tune into other people's emotions, to be empathic, and to put that all together to manage relationships well. It turns out that's what makes an engineer highly effective. I think it's what makes anyone highly effective. 

Author of The Wandering · Apple and Knife
Editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets · Co-ed. The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas

The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state.

Author of The Wandering · Apple and Knife
Editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets · Co-ed. The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas

The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state.

Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. Music courtesy of composer Max Richter.

Electronic Musician · Fmr. Computational Biologist

As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts is an essential part of that.

Electronic Musician · Fmr. Computational Biologist

As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts is an essential part of that.

Neuroscientist turned Environmental Journalist
Author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies

I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder. And I think when we take a step back and begin to appreciate the complexity of the interactions around us. We're taking note of a very porous between the self and the rest of the world. We are literally observing our enmeshment in our environment. And it's that kind of a reference frameshift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness. My mother is an artist, and I think growing up surrounded by her practice exposed me to the creative process and is probably that which afforded me a certain sympathy for those tools and those modes of exploring the world later in life.

Neuroscientist turned Environmental Journalist
Author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies

I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder. And I think when we take a step back and begin to appreciate the complexity of the interactions around us. We're taking note of a very porous between the self and the rest of the world. We are literally observing our enmeshment in our environment. And it's that kind of a reference frameshift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness. My mother is an artist, and I think growing up surrounded by her practice exposed me to the creative process and is probably that which afforded me a certain sympathy for those tools and those modes of exploring the world later in life.

Co-writer · Executive Producer · Co-showrunner of HBO’s The Sympathizer

I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. That's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese side, and then recognize that that side also has two sides and then within that, there are further divisions. And if you do that, I think what it's proposing is that you have to step back. It forces a sort of objectivity and humility, and it asks you to step back and allow the bigger human questions to resonate.

Co-writer · Executive Producer · Co-showrunner of HBO’s The Sympathizer

I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. That's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese side, and then recognize that that side also has two sides and then within that, there are further divisions. And if you do that, I think what it's proposing is that you have to step back. It forces a sort of objectivity and humility, and it asks you to step back and allow the bigger human questions to resonate.

Award-winning Screenwriters · Exec. Producers · Directors
American Rust · The Looming Tower
Capote · The Outsiders musical

We're all culpable in some way of being both good and bad, being virtuous and also questionable at times in our own lives. And I think when you start answering questions on either side of that too firmly, I think it allows the audience to disconnect from it. And then you just have this sort of a good and bad guy narrative that is oversimplified all too often in our culture. I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.

Award-winning Screenwriters · Exec. Producers · Directors
American Rust · The Looming Tower
Capote · The Outsiders musical

We're all culpable in some way of being both good and bad, being virtuous and also questionable at times in our own lives. And I think when you start answering questions on either side of that too firmly, I think it allows the audience to disconnect from it. And then you just have this sort of a good and bad guy narrative that is oversimplified all too often in our culture. I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.

Author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene
Snr. Researcher · Trinity Centre for Literary & Cultural Translation

The idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative.

Author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene
Snr. Researcher · Trinity Centre for Literary & Cultural Translation

The idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative.

Emmy Award-winning · Oscar-nominated Composer · Musician
1 0 0 1 · Silfur · Transparent · Lion

It's really like a journey from our connection with nature to where we are now, in this moment where we're playing with technology. We're almost in this hybrid space, not fully understanding where it's going. And it's very deep in our subconscious and probably much greater than we realize. And it sort of ends in this space where the consciousness of what we're creating, it's going to be very separate from us. And I believe that's kind of where it's heading – the idea of losing humanity, losing touch with nature and becoming outside of something that we have created.

Emmy Award-winning · Oscar-nominated Composer · Musician
1 0 0 1 · Silfur · Transparent · Lion

It's really like a journey from our connection with nature to where we are now, in this moment where we're playing with technology. We're almost in this hybrid space, not fully understanding where it's going. And it's very deep in our subconscious and probably much greater than we realize. And it sort of ends in this space where the consciousness of what we're creating, it's going to be very separate from us. And I believe that's kind of where it's heading – the idea of losing humanity, losing touch with nature and becoming outside of something that we have created.

President & CEO of the National Constitution Center
Author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America

That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

President & CEO of the National Constitution Center
Author of The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America

That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.

Intimacy Coordinator · Founder of Intimacy on Set
Author of Intimacy On Set Guidelines

For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused. 

Intimacy Coordinator · Founder of Intimacy on Set
Author of Intimacy On Set Guidelines

For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused. 

Author | Illustrator

I did know that I wanted this book about turtles to also be about time. It's one of two big questions in philosophy. The one big mystery that I had tackled in a previous book, Soul of an Octopus, was the mystery of consciousness. The other big hard problem in philosophy is time. And I felt, you know, who better to lead me in this exploration than turtles, who live in some cases for centuries, who've been around...they arose with dinosaurs, yet they survived the asteroid impact. They are the embodiment of patience and wisdom.

Author | Illustrator

I did know that I wanted this book about turtles to also be about time. It's one of two big questions in philosophy. The one big mystery that I had tackled in a previous book, Soul of an Octopus, was the mystery of consciousness. The other big hard problem in philosophy is time. And I felt, you know, who better to lead me in this exploration than turtles, who live in some cases for centuries, who've been around...they arose with dinosaurs, yet they survived the asteroid impact. They are the embodiment of patience and wisdom.

NYTimes Bestselling Author
House of Sand and Fog · The Garden of Last Days · Ghost Dogs · Townie

All creative writing is that act of reaching for the pieces to put it back together again. And with the memoir, the essay, it's human memory. Your memory for your own existence. With fiction, it’s a dream world where you're reaching for the shards. Writing is a free fall into the writer's psyche, and if you want some clarity on what you believe, just write something sincere and emotionally naked and read it back to yourself, and you'll see a lot of what you believe, what you think, what you fear, regret, and desire, etc.

NYTimes Bestselling Author
House of Sand and Fog · The Garden of Last Days · Ghost Dogs · Townie

All creative writing is that act of reaching for the pieces to put it back together again. And with the memoir, the essay, it's human memory. Your memory for your own existence. With fiction, it’s a dream world where you're reaching for the shards. Writing is a free fall into the writer's psyche, and if you want some clarity on what you believe, just write something sincere and emotionally naked and read it back to yourself, and you'll see a lot of what you believe, what you think, what you fear, regret, and desire, etc.

Explorer & Aviator of the First Round-the-World Solar-powered Flight
Founder of Solar Impulse Foundation & Climate Impulse
UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment

The goal with Climate Impulse is to revolutionize aviation and show that we can decarbonize aviation. We can make it more efficient. Of course, it's not yet a jumbo jet with hydrogen. It's a two-seater airplane. But I want to make the ultimate flight to shake a little bit the certitudes of the people. If we go around the world nonstop with two people on board, this project can become like a flagship of climate action.

Explorer & Aviator of the First Round-the-World Solar-powered Flight
Founder of Solar Impulse Foundation & Climate Impulse
UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment

The goal with Climate Impulse is to revolutionize aviation and show that we can decarbonize aviation. We can make it more efficient. Of course, it's not yet a jumbo jet with hydrogen. It's a two-seater airplane. But I want to make the ultimate flight to shake a little bit the certitudes of the people. If we go around the world nonstop with two people on board, this project can become like a flagship of climate action.

Paleoanthropologist · Author of The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature

This book is not just about Neanderthals. It's a book about us. I wanted to warn humans, to say there is something in us that is so efficient and dangerous. We've effectively collapsed many things and are now inducing the collapse of natural environments on the planet. And after that, we might even cause the collapse of ourselves as Homo sapiens.

Paleoanthropologist · Author of The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature

This book is not just about Neanderthals. It's a book about us. I wanted to warn humans, to say there is something in us that is so efficient and dangerous. We've effectively collapsed many things and are now inducing the collapse of natural environments on the planet. And after that, we might even cause the collapse of ourselves as Homo sapiens.

Coordinator, Phd Programme, Environmental Sustainability & Wellbeing · University of Ferrara
Co-editor of Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies

The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other.