Some Christians believe the harder that one thinks, the colder faith will grow. Augustine grew more brilliant as he grew more pious, more creative as he became more orthodox. His period of heresy was imitative, but his traditional Christianity took mental risks.

In the future, I think it's pretty plausible that collective intelligence tools and skills will be important in order to be a part of global dialog, global business, and global creativity. People who know how to negotiate collective intelligence networks are going to be in a good position to contribute to global society.

When you define your goals, you give your brain something new to look for and focus on. It's as if you're giving your mind a new set of eyes from which to see all the people, circumstances, conversations, resources, ideas, and creativity surrounding you.

When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away - even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.

“Sometimes people choose an easy life. They don't want to go through the struggle. But struggle makes us better. It gives us strength and character. It is with struggle that someone can catch the brilliance of their creativity! Embrace your struggles. They are making you the person you were meant to be.”

“TechTarget's commitment to accountability and advertiser ROI has made its online properties our preferred media for lead generation, ... When we learned TechTarget was bringing that same commitment to online branding, we were quick to sign up. As a result of our TargetROI: Brand program with TechTarget, we can now demonstrate conclusively that banner advertising with strong creative on a TechTarget site enabled us to achieve dramatic shifts in awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. We believe this will create a climate that will help us convert future leads to sales more quickly.”

“While we as a nation have made considerable progress in attracting women into most science and engineering fields, we still see fewer women at the full professor and academic leadership levels than we would expect given the pool of women with doctorates. After investing in creating this pool of highly trained talent, we should see a high rate of return -- productive, creative and respected teachers and researchers attracting more students into fields that might have seemed closed to them given the traditional profile of science and engineering faculty.”

Although there are certain needs, such as hunger, thirst, sex, which are common to man, those drives which make for the differences in men's characters, like love and hatred, the lust for power and the yearning for submission, the enjoyment of sensuous pleasure and the fear of it, are all products of the social process. The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed and biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man. In other words, society has not only a suppressing function - although it has that too - but it has also a creative function.

Most people in this country are looking for literature that is useful. They feel that just exploring their feelings is good enough - they should be reading about leveraged buy-outs or how to get thin. We live in a culture that is so absolutely, madly focused on commercialism and on creating money and completely turned away from any other kind of creative value. People don't generally turn to poetry unless they're bereaved or have fallen in love. Or in adolescence, when their feelings are very strong and turbulent. I think most of us are dying for lack of spirit in this culture.

They will talk about you and it won't always be good. You won't even know them but they will critique you - and judge you - and everything you stand for. Their words will cut through your heart-strings and make you question the hopes and dreams that have gnawed your soul since birth. I warn you, because I believe your unique gift of expression needs to be shared. Resist cowering down and holding back for fear of rejection. Spread those creative wings and create. But, prepare yourself. Because naysayers are not a possibility, they are a guarantee.