How to Fly a Horse

Kevin Ashton, the writer of How to Fly a Horse (that's a link to Ashton's website, not to the book, which is here), makes a great case for the idea that genius doesn't really exist, there is no such thing as writer's block, and that it is as natural for every human being to create and be creative as it is for every human being to breathe.

I found the book to be comforting. I'm happiest when I'm working on something, and the joy of doing anything for me is in the doing, not the "having done." Ashton makes a great case for creating things because you want to, regardless of receiving compensation for making them.

I also found the book to be inspiring. Ashton makes the point that nothing comes from nothing, and that we all contribute to the world by standing on the shoulders of people who came before us, who were in turn standing on the shoulders of people who came before them. Right off the bat he debunks the myth that Mozart didn't need to work on the music he wrote (that it came to him fully composed and he just needed to write it down), and soon thereafter he devotes a whole chapter, and then some, to Rosalind Franklin, one of my heroes.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Most people are better at some things than they are at other things, but everyone has the right to be creative, and everyone has the right to create in his or her own way, regardless of affiliations, styles, rules, and all the artificial barriers that get in the way of indulging in the life-affirming act of making things up.

Thank you Kevin Ashton for writing such a wonderful book.