The Archive of Free Thinking

think – act – grow

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  • How to pick the right medium

    “If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.” Stanley Kubrick While Stanley Kubrick’s words could be an observation on the intrinsic flexibility of film (or a somewhat arrogant assessment of his own skill as a director), it is more fundamentally a comment on the flow of ideas across mediums. This edition explores…

  • You should be listening to buildings

    “Interiors (of buildings) are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere.” Peter Zumthor Sound, like colour, offers architects a material with a wide spectrum of potential applications.  Sound in buildings can create atmosphere, rekindle memories and generate emotions. It can repurpose and refine private and public space, and it can be efficient,…

  • Don’t forget about textile art

    “The act of sewing is a process of emotional repair.” Louise Bourgeois Sewing, in all its forms: weaving, knitting, crochet and embroidery, has a unique quality and meaning derived from the range of materials used in the structured process of creation. The medium informs the works created, but so does the process of creation. This…

  • How to change minds

    “A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.” Nelson Mandela The development and maintenance of societies depends on bringing together individuals with differing…

  • Is greed good? Balancing rhetoric and informed debate

    I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” Gordon Gekko in ‘Wall Street’ (1987)

  • “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the significant potential of community economics

    “People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you’ll ever be!” George Bailey

  • A Question of Form: system alignment in problem-solving

    “The first requisite for a body of practical and progressing thought: recognition of the kind of problem at issue. Lacking this, it has found the shortest distance to a dead end.” Jane Jacobs

  • Fireside chatting: fire, community and the human mind

    “The most enduring tool that fire ever made might just be the human mind.” Thomas Wynn

  • Narratives of Disempowerment: when ‘good men’ do nothing

    “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.” John Stuart Mill

  • Intellectual effort and the search for a better life.

    “Because more complex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer life.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.