Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, gives a talk at the TED conference about the fickle nature of creativity and how it connects us with something greater, something over which we have absolutely no control.

Flickr is a surrealist’s dream. I search for “dictionary,” I get a picture of a lion. Where’s Dali when you need a high five?

I just returned from my semi-weekly pilgrimage ¹ to the library where I picked up a book I requested four months ago, which had just come in.

Oh, but it is not just a book. It is an experience. It is in a box. It looks like it might be filled with candy. It is filled with candy! Literary candy! Like a Whitman’s Sampler for your brain!

It is The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson ² and the inside of the box reads:

NOTE
This novel has twenty-seven sections, temporarily held together by a removable wrapper. Apart from the first and last sections (which are marked as such) the other twenty-five section are intended to be read in random order. If readers prefer not to accept the random order in which they receive the novel, then they may re-arrange the sections into any other random order before reading.

I of course do not accept the random order in which I have received the novel and have pre-randomized it for my own enjoyment. I am also choosing to read the Introduction before the first chapter because my need for information and order supersedes my need to follow directions.

Wanted to let you in on the excitement. Here, have some vicarious literary delight. Me to you. Happy Friday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I recently became acquainted with the wonders of Flickr, ¹ where I searched through innumerable ² photos to create a library for this blog. To my surprise, the majority of the photos I loved had certain settings disabled, which made the photos visible, but very difficult to download. ³

I understand that photographers want to have control over their work, that they don’t want bloggers altering, adulterating, mangling, or making a general mockery of their photos–as well they shouldn’t–but doesn’t this reticence to share hinder the creative back-and-forth that propels our culture forward?

I’m reading The Gift by Lewis Hyde whom the NYTimes magazine profiled in an amazing article a few weeks ago. He believes that by treating art as an offering, that by circulating it, by allowing it to become part of a dialogue, its value increases far more than it ever could as a commodity. The more hands that touch a work of art the more precious it becomes. He is not saying that artists shouldn’t be compensated for their work or that they should give away all rights to it, but he makes the argument that our greed and our copyright and licensing laws have run amok.

I was listening to the commentary track of Forgetting Sarah Marshall the other day and the producer, Shauna Robertson, was talking about how much Paul Rudd, who plays a surf instructor in the movie, likes to ad lib. Every take is different with him. Unfortunately, in the take that made it into the film, Rudd says offhandedly, almost under his breath,  “Let’s go surfing now. Everybody’s learning how.” Robertson notes, her voice dripping with vitriol, that they ended up having to pay ten thousand dollars for the rights to use the Beach Boys’ lyrics in the movie. Ten thousand dollars for a two sentence throw away ad lib. This, I believe, is the kind of thing Hyde would take offense with.

I know what it means to be precious about one’s work. I become suicidal on the day I get edits back from an editor–She changed my semi colon to a comma?! Should I take my name off the piece? I don’t want my stuff hijacked by strangers anymore than the next guy. But the more I read Hyde’s book the more I see that my work, even in it’s most pristine form, isn’t adding to the conversation by sitting in a folder marked Brilliant on my desktop. Perhaps there is something to be said for putting oneself and one’s art and a little bit of one’s heart and soul, in whatever form that takes, out there.  And once it’s out there, there’s something to be said for  letting it go.

The internet has made it impossible to keep things to yourself. Information is everywhere. It is undeniable, unavoidable. Songs, movies, photos, articles, drawings can be downloaded in the click of a button, regardless of whether their creators want you to or not.

So if there is a certain inevitability to the uncontrolled dissemination and repurposing of information and art, what if we try something revolutionary. What if instead of calling it stealing, we call it sharing.