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Bodrum Castle, Türkiye Sept 12, 2025 | | |
At our friend Andrea’s birthday in Hampshire last weekend,
the Man in the Lime Suit said to me above the din, “they’ve taken the spark out
of everyone. Taken what’s inside people that belongs to them and makes them
act.” I nodded. The spark never does go
out, but I knew exactly what he meant.
The spark to make one’s own things is the origin and outcome
of teaching and research. It leads to a set of powers in art to show what’s not
seen and to diverge from what exists.
In politics, it’s to break with a nightmare of the present,
and build an alternative to it, brick by brick, where you have to make most of
the bricks yourself.
In management, the spark enables the creation of the
positive narrative of your institution’s destiny and the coordination of your
people into a powerful movement towards it. (I wrote about these linked
elements last
time.)