One
of the great unspoken truths of the American rush of the winter holidays –
particularly Christmas or Yule -- is how many people – in the midst of the gush
of happy happy joy joy merry merry ho ho ho – are despairing, depressed, and
crushed. Here we have a series of winter holidays that can fill a community, a
family, and an individual with wonder, delight, and good cheer. But there’s
just one thing – these seasonal celebrations are so laden with expectations of
both family connectedness and consumption that the vast majority of us won’t be
able to live in those holiday practices for more than a few moments of our
lives, if ever. But that’s not the message we’re given. The message we’re given
is: if we were really good enough or successful enough we can have it all. That
might be true if we were talking about celebrations that neither depended on
family formation nor consumption of excludable goods, if these holidays were
the public goods that mythically and even here and there over time they have
been.
“How do we create more public
goods where there is non-rivaled consumption – your consumption does not
diminish the supply of good for me – and is non-excludable – your consumption
doesn’t mean I’ll have less of it?” – Professor Anil Gupta, “Bottom-Up
Inventors”, University of Cambridge Audio Series Innovation, 7/2/09
Let’s
innovate some public goods. There are still days left to rescue the Yuletide
season from excludable and consumable goods – still days to gather some friends
for community caroling, to look into ways to spend the holidays with people
only seeing one empty or hungrier day ahead in long-term care facilities,
shelters, and prisons, to tell wonderful stories in public places, to hold impromptu
snow or sand sculpture events, to make room.
Innovators begin with the question: what’s the problem with…? Or what’s missing here is…? The deal with this game of innovating for the public good is that it has to meet these criteria – non-rivaled and non-excludable consumption. This is a game you can play and carry with you everywhere – when conversation lags or on the bus or waiting in line.
We human beings are essentially creative. That
means each and every one of us is endowed with the power of innovation. When
our focus shifts from what we do not have and want to the larger social
questions of how we create a better world, then we’re really blessing ourselves
and each other, reflecting that star power from which we’re all made.
