I love to travel and I have always made it a priority to do so. When I think about it, my desire to really see the world began after being inspired by something Steve Jobs said in a Wired Magazine interview in the mid nineties. The idea behind the quote, which I wrote in the front of my college sketchbook at the time, pushed me to explore the world and expose myself to new ways of life and experiences. It goes like this:
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s a rare commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design he/she will have.”
Steve Jobs, co-founder Apple Computer, Founder NEXT computing
Wired Magazine, February 1996, page 163.
“Understanding the human experience”, wow what a great statement.
This last September I had the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. This destination had been on my to-do list for some time and recession-related financial issues had kept me from doing so. In the beautiful ruins of this ancient Incan city, I found numerous points of inspiration not only in fine craftsmanship, but in the ancient people’s love of their Gods and the land. I have some specific examples that I’ll share in the near future; I still need to get an opportunity to organize some of the photos I took from the trip.
Links:
Wikipedia: Machu Picchu
Wired Magazine: www.wired.com