One of the greatest Walls to the imagination, to creativity is capitalism.

Creation needs to be more democratic. There needs to be more access, but this goes against capitalism. But how can we democratize creativity, so everyone has equal access? We give power to the oligarchy, the 1% of 1% when we agree they are the ones with the power. We take that power back when we say we have the right to create the reality we live in. That reality becomes manifest as soon as we wake up and realize that the old paradigm is no longer an agreement we accept. Nobody can tell you to accept an agreement you never agreed upon. To create is to resist. To resist is to create. When we create we resist the capitalist modus operandi of society, we resist what we are told we are, what we are supposed to be, what we ought to be, and become who we are. By resisting we are being creative beings, one of the most powerful things there is.

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For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Ageism and retirement are walls away from the imagination, away from creativity.

In the majority of creative fields there’s this pressure to hit it out of the park first time out, after college, with your first creation. Well, that’s a wrong-headed and destructive way of thinking and being in the world. It only leads to anxiety and depression or worse. Retirement? What the hell are people retiring from? Life? Why bother living any more if you’re going to retire from it? Why not create something instead? Why not re-create, not re-tire? Are you really that tired, or only tired because society says you are?

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Courage is needed to deal with trolls and human Walls away from creativity and the imagination.

Trolls don’t always hide in dark places. They can be people close to you, family, friends, colleagues. A lot of these people may not even know how harmful they’re being when they say things that hurt you. It’s natural. How can they understand unless they too have created something and had it taken apart? These people are human walls. You’ve picked up your pen, your business plan, and instead of blue screens distracting you, a human wall appears as you walk into your office, studio, garage. They can be friends, family, acquaintances, other creators, people you work with. They’re emotional distractions.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Myths can move us towards Imagination and creativity or they can move us away from it.

So, it’s important to understand the difference between positive myths, and negative ones, because they work, whether it be understanding common universal stories or reinforcing common lies, Walls. A good example would be so called urban myths, which are basically falsehoods, masquerading as truths. There are many of these types of negative myths when it comes to Imagination. If meaning comes from the stories we tell ourselves, the myths we tell ourselves, then why can’t we create new stories instead of simply rejecting or accepting the old ones? Stories can open the Door into a new mythic world, one where we come together instead of apart, especially if we want to survive as a species. Yes, we have to know the old myths, and more importantly the negative ones, but we also need to create new ones, new Doors towards Imagination and creativity.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Perfection is another Wall away from Imagination and creativity.

Nothing is ever completely figured out at the beginning. Everything changes. It’s a process. Instead of pursuing perfection go after excellence instead. Like Aristotle said think: Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. So try to get better at what you love creating. By doing, again and again and again, the gifts of talent, originality and genius come naturally, organically in the next act of the Imagination.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

There are three Walls that build on each other: genius, talent and originality. They lead us away from the Imagination and creativity.

There are no geniuses, only moments of genius. And genius comes with hard work, every day. Every so called “genius” worked consistently, and got better with each new creation they created. The word itself comes from the Latin verb “to bring into being, create, produce”. It’s not the person but what comes into being, the creation itself, the act of creation, which is genius. The ancient Romans saw it another way, that everyone has their own genius, even whole communities, but that genius is a guide. We create the conditions for it to bring creations, gifts, into reality.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

To create is to embrace difference, to become the black sheep, to move towards the imagination and creativity.

It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to get outside your comfort zone. Actually, it’s a tremendous help when you’re trying to create something different, whether it’s an ice-cream or a poem. Think about how boring life is when you’re not pushed to grow, to become a black sheep. How can you create if you’re in a small container? You can only grow to the size of your container. You have to make your container bigger. Then you create larger, more expansive creations. Then you grow as your creations grow.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Lexical prisons create a mind enclosed in language, blocking the way towards the Imagination and creativity.

We need to democratize creativity, democratize Imagination, just like we need to democratize psychology, because when we don’t have a language we can’t speak to other people who speak that language in the same way. If we don’t have a language of creation then we can’t speak to people about creating something without thinking we’ve no idea what we’re talking about. As opposed to simply having psychology in the universities and available to people of a certain socio-economic class, it needs to be available to everyone, democratized, applied psychology. We need an applied creativity, applied imagination, just like we need applied psychology. All the people need access, not just the few. The few is not democracy, the few is oligarchy. And oligarchic psychology and oligarchic creativity is simply not healthy for the larger population, only the few.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

School and education are very often major Walls away from the Imagination and creativity.

People are educated to stay in the box. Society’s educational system is based on this broken model, that of the mathematical mind created during the utilitarian Industrial Revolution Dickens so wonderfully satirizes in his novels. Don’t let education or schooling be a Wall away from Imagination. For the most part education doesn’t teach you creative intelligence, how to create what you want to create. You want to educate yourself in what you want to create? Don’t give up. Learn by doing.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.

Creativity can be a wall to the Imagination because the very word has been often co-opted for negative uses.

We are creative when we imagine. When we imagine, inspiration comes. When we imagine we create. We use the imagination to create. We don’t use creativity to create. Creativity is objective, what we see someone doing, creating. And innovation is when we better it, both being things in the tangible world. The action of creating though, that’s imagining, new theories, characters, worlds. Creativity is imprisoned by reality, imagination is free, released from the unreal. Create by using the Imagination.

To support the podcast visit: https://www.patreon.com/johnfanning and sign up for the price of a pint every month. In return, you will gain full access to future series and episodes - interviews with writers, artists, filmmakers, as well as all manner of other creators John has met in the Portland area and from his 20 years of meeting creators as the founder of La Muse in southern France.

For updates on future episodes and live shows follow: www.instagram.com/johnfanning_, or https://twitter.com/fanning_j, or visit: johnfanning.me or email the show directly on [email protected].

Disclaimer: All materials contained within this podcast are copyright protected. Third party reuse and/or quotation in whole or in part is prohibited unless direct credit and/or hyperlink to the Create with John Fanning podcast is clearly and accurately provided. Thank you.