Welcome To A New Renaissance

Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash

Throughout the course of human history, there are lot more stories of ashes than there are of revival.

When those moments of rebirth do come, they typically change everything. Which is exactly what happened at the turn of the 14th century.

After decades and centuries of what come to be known as the Dark Ages, light broke through and over a landscape of war, famine, and disease stretched a horizon of hope. A new dawn rose and a cultural revolution took place that changed the scope of history forever.

Leonardo DaVinci, Shakespeare, Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, Copernicus, Raphael, Descartes, John Milton, Giotto, and Erasmus are among a few of the many now-legendary names to emerge during this period.

In 1450, Guttenburg invited the printing press. As Neil Postman describes in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, this invention singlehandedly helped shift the importance of public discourse away from oral-communication to the written word. Society has never been the same since.

During these days, art led to wonder and deep thinking led to new questions being asked. Science was transformed. Academia was established. Exploration was demanded and the courage to be creative was birthed in the hearts of men and women around the globe.

It was a time of rebirth or as the French would say: renaissance.

While we haven’t recently emerged from a long stretch of stagnation similar to the Dark Ages, the possibility for the emergence of a renaissance mindset during these days is extraordinary.

Men and women around the world are waking up to the realization that the ways we’ve always done things don't necessarily have to be the ways we keep moving forward. We’ve collectively asked more questions during these last weeks and months than we may have asked in the entire last year or last decade.

Renaissance comes on the winds of re-evaluation. It requires looking broadly and searching deeply. It requires the unification of diverse ideas and opportunities, of constant re-adjustments and course corrections.

It requires Great Noticers.

Culture is changed by renaissance. Previously thought boundaries are re-imagined and perceived limitations are stretched into their full possibility. The conventional, safe, consistent way of looking at the world is set aside, either from necessity and or from a deep desire for there is a great, wide world out there to be discovered and explored.

When the barriers of “this is how we have always done it” begin to crack and fall, new opportunities become more widely accessible. New passions emerge, new avenues of exploration and side-roads of curiosity spring forth.

In a time where creativity may have sat dormant, a stalled society has split open the reserves and called up the sleeping potential within each of us.

In his book Range, David Epstein talks about the Medieval guild system. He writes:

“The guild system in Europe arose in the Middle Ages as artisans and merchants sought to maintain and protect specialized skills and trades. Although such guilds often produced highly trained and specialized individuals who perfected their trade through prolonged apprenticeships, they also encouraged conservatism and stifled innovation, creating intellectual archipelagos.”

Our society today was beginning to see and celebrate traces of the guild system popularized during the Middle Ages. However, these months have served as a great interruption to that potential destination. As if being shaken from a stupor, society has been given another chance to steer the course of the next century. We have been given the chance of a renaissance.

If this is to happen, if we are to actually shift the culture in a new direction with a new ideal of exploration, we must look to become generators of creativity. We must look to become innovators, spanning multiple-fields and dimensions of work.

The door to every sector of society has been cracked ajar. Healthcare, education, technology, transportation, business, and the arts. Each titan has been temporarily indisposed, creating a once-in-a-century opportunity to renovate and re-imagine how and why we lean we accept these influences on our everyday lives.

This is the call to every writer. Every dreamer and engineer. To the playwright and the poet, the CEO and the Chief Surgeon of the Cardiac Unit. If Renaissance is upon us, we should not and must not idly return to what was before. The concrete is wet before us but it will reset unless we keep stirring. Keep asking. Keep advocating and challenging.

Just because something can go back to the way it was doesn’t mean that it should.

We can re-discover how to create and how to think. We can shift the opportunity away from

We must each look within ourselves and ask: what could I contribute? What does a renaissance within your own life look like? What can you notice about our world and how can you generate the inspiration to tackle the challenges you see ahead?

If a renaissance is possible, why not dive in?