I think Lewis Hyde has it right in thinking about creativity and the commons from an article about his work in ‘On the Commons’:
Along with a history of the commons I plan to write a parallel analysis of how we have imagined the creative self. We have a long tradition that takes creative work to be the fruit of individual genius working in isolation. Henry Thoreau in his cabin is the American type. But might we not as easily say that the creative mind is itself a kind of commons? A remark that Goethe made toward the end of his life gives a sample of a more communitarian tradition of artistic self-imagining:
“What am I then…? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity, and old age all have brought me their thoughts,… their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name of Goethe.”
In his essay, Created Commons, Hyde explains that he “takes Goethe’s image and applies it to Thoreau to show how, despite his fabled independence, we would not have his work were it not for the remarkably rich community and communal institutions that surrounded him in Concord.”
I think this is at the heart of extraordinary sustainable development work, the brilliance of collective composition. This is not easy to create as there is a tendency in group work to focus more on differences and limitations. But to create a space where project teams can also focus on our individual and collective insights and possibilities can make an ordinary project sing.