Can I, one human being among 7.8 billion, create something truly new?  Something that has never been here before?  The Population Reference Bureau estimates that 108 billion humans have lived on Earth in the span of time.  That’s a lot of people!  What are the odds that Bruce Kerr could, in effect, create a new colour, where people would look at it and say “What is that?”

I don’t know about odds, but I admit the whole idea seems outrageous.  Couldn’t I just settle for coming up with a “new and improved” version of something that someone else had created?  Well, sure, I could do that, but the prospect of Brand New is really enticing!

I’m smart but would I have to be brilliant to bring forth the “unpreceded”?  My intuition says no.  I don’t have to be the world’s most intelligent, creative, witty, empathetic and beautiful person to create something from nothing.  I can do this … and so can you.  That sounds irrational to say, but perhaps reason should take a back seat here.  Perhaps we don’t need to reflect on the accumulated knowledge of millenia either.  Maybe the magical number sequence is worlds away from “1, 2, 3, 4 …” or even from “1, 2, 4, 8 …”.  Maybe the new is in the realm of Nicolaus Copernicus, who in 1543 declared: “At rest, however, in the middle of everything, is the sun.”  Not the Earth.

And … it could be that it’s not an individual, but rather a group who will foster the infinite.  Bruce will be included but it will have nothing to do with his ego.

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You may be wondering if I can put my finger on what I (or we) will bring newly into the world.  I have a glimpse, barely visible through the mist.  It has to do with moments, with stretching them beyond their apparent point in time.  It has to do with the eyes as organs that not only perceive but evoke.  It has to do with lingering, and hearing the final note of all the orchestral instruments hanging in the air.

Something new is coming