Memorandum*

To: All Nostalgians

From: A Hybrid Chic

Subject: Innovation

Date: Now

“…constant evolution causes expansion”

(Lewis, “Evolution” Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness 130).

Here lies a brief assertion, which deconstructs a thought I have had over a year, on the crippling effects nostalgians can have on the creative culture—when they are afraid of the future. It is with great hope that you will read the following words and evolve courageously, so that our world may expand with the most peculiar and brilliant minds that our culture has ever known. 

The Post Neo-Romantics:

Who’s Afraid of the Future?

March 31, 2013

The Problem

For the past six years, the U.S. has shifted in what many deem a downward motion of economic and social uncertainties, and the view of the good ole days can seem so much brighter. Just as nostalgia was utilized as a trope in Neo-Romanticism, so has it reappeared—remixed—in a Postmodern utopian cultural landscape of the Post Neo-Romantics.  As we wrestle with the prefixes ‘post,’ and ‘neo,’ we question ourselves, and therefore deconstruct the notions of newness and originality. How can anything old become new again—without it being just redundant? The simple answer: change the mentality behind the question.

Post Neo-romantics are too in love with the past, yet critical of tradition and uncertain of the future. Ironically, a large population of the inhabitants of this utopian cultural landscape, are mental wanderlusters: people who were not born in a certain decade, in which they culturally identify with, yet they have mentally travelled to that specific space in time, and adopted the cultural, not social, characteristics of decades past—as if it were present day—so, they are unable to connect to present culture, nor add to future culture.

Being too nostalgic can cripple creativity as a thinker is solely stuck at looking only at the past. Yet, if the creative takes inspiration from his/her heroes’ works, eras, cultural concepts, etc., and studies and analyzes it, then add their personal touch to it—innovation ultimately occurs.

I have written this brief memo as a starting point: to cease imitation, which is caused by fear, and to create innovation.

A Solution

“There is no creativity and innovation without failure.”- Dr. Brené Brown

Cliché as it may be, change is inevitable; nothing stays the same, so you might as well suit up and go for the ride—of course, with plan a, b + c in hand—then again, those plans may require plan d.

Innovation Is Queen

Call it the new Feminist Theory, or just what it is—if “the idea is king,” innovation is queen (Katzenberg, 1991). Sitting on a throne all her own, she is an analytic problem solver, quick witted, charismatic and even ideas are strategically protected by her. Although there are a lot of oppositions to ideas, there is no limit to her innovative moves—don’t give up, victory is a process that sometimes, takes us off course.

……..

pre-order volume II of neonV ”the magazine for the contemporary peculiar woman,” to read this article in its entirety and more, here. 

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Photo: *Edited version via  @stopbeingfamous