Anatomy of a Spark
A building block for a better way to live.
At Polynize we talk a lot about sparks. We use the word ‘spark’ intentionally to convey something precise — the process by which the creativity of one person inspires a second person to express his or her own creativity in response.
The spark has become central to our worldview. It is not just a metaphor but a real, dynamic phenomenon that we see at work all around us. And we propose that it’s a fundamental building block for a new (better) way for humans to live, work and flourish.
So now we have a responsibility to clearly explain what exactly we are talking about. Here, then, is a brief anatomy of a ‘spark’ — what it is, how it works and why it is so important.
Writing a Song
Like all words that point towards the infinite, the word creativity is fuzzy. It is usually thought of as a solo process — the musician in his studio, the painter at her easel etc. But our own lived experience shows us that creativity is social. Every creative person iteratively exchanges and builds on the creativity of other people. The creative output is a function of every such interaction.
An example: I write a song and bring it into the band. It’s a melody and lyrics with some chord progressions and a basic beat. The drummer adds his vibe to the beat and brings it to life. The guitarist smashes out a solo. The keyboardist gets inspired to pick up his harmonica. And now it’s really a song.
This direct experience of social creativity drives our work. It is in this dynamic environment that we are happiest and most productive. And when driven by common purpose, we collaboratively create our life’s best work.
So we asked ourselves the question — what is the simplest functional system that captures the essence of social creativity?
99% Consumption
Before we answer that question, a brief review of the status quo.
Our current civilization is built on social consumption. Creativity has been delegated to a small, specialized caste of people managed by a layer of gatekeepers/‘middlemen’. Most people consider themselves ‘uncreative’.
The basic circuit that drives this status quo is a consume-share process. A creative product is consumed and passed unmodified through the network for others to consume in turn.
This applies to all categories of cultural products — music, TV shows, memes, scientific papers, apps, articles (like this one), everything. The share process is driven by technology and always potentially exponential.
This allows one single creative output to be consumed as an input by huge numbers of people. This ‘scalability’ is highly prized by investors etc.
Note that there is no learning or creativity in this process. As consumers we are passive signal carriers. Cultural evolution as a process is essentially limited to the caste of “creatives” and 99%+ of people never participate.
Creative Consumers
Social creativity has a fundamentally different building block - a consume-create-share circuit. Every act of consumption inspires a corresponding creative act. This creates new/modified creative outputs at every iteration.
This completely changes the nature of the system. There is learning, agency and evolution. A static and finite process is now dynamic and infinite. And there is an embedded relationship between consumption and creativity — we are all “creative consumers”.
Dissecting a Spark
A spark is the cycle of two consume-create-share circuits in interaction. This is the minimal relationship between two creative-consumers. Your creation inspires me to create in response.
If we dissect this process and take a microscope to it (as we have been doing through our observations of the Polynize game) we discern a finer structure:
- you create the output as an individual mental/physical act.
- you communicate the output to me in a form/medium that I can understand.
- I experience the creation output as a communicated input.
- I invest in your input i.e. I acknowledge that it has value for me/others.
- I feel inspired by your input
- I create a new/modified output as a response
Sparks connect together and tesselate if the environment is right. They scale. But instead of scaling consumption, a spark network scales creativity. One day, spark networks will unleash the true potential of seven billion human minds.
Musings and Questions
Firstly, just to reiterate — this is empirical work. We haven’t constructed a theory. The spark is just a description of what really happens — not only in our own personal history, but through careful observation of hundreds of Polynize players across diverse audiences.
And it’s not really something to talk about. What matters is the experience of the spark. Sharing that experience is our life’s work.
There are many many musings to come:
- how sparks embed the infinite into a finite game
- how spark networks dissolve our concepts of ownership/IP
- why sparks outcompete “social media”
- how spark networks can systematically explore adjacent possibles
- sparks will build the Creative Age as the transistor built the Digital Age
But for now, one particular musing to finish up. When you and I experience a spark, the outputs we create are a tangible expression of our relationship. The spark is a true co-creation; something beautiful in the space between us. It belongs to both of us and neither of us.
As Tyson Yunkaporta says in Sand Talk — “real understanding comes in the spaces in between”.
