WEBVTT

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So, when I was in art school,

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I developed a shake in my hand,

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and this was the straightest line I could draw.

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Now in hindsight, it was actually good for some things,

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like mixing a can of paint or shaking a Polaroid,

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but at the time this was really doomsday.

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This was the destruction of my dream of becoming an artist.

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The shake developed out of, really,

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a single-minded pursuit of pointillism,

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just years of making tiny, tiny dots.

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And eventually these dots went from being perfectly round

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to looking more like tadpoles, because of the shake.

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So to compensate, I'd hold the pen tighter,

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and this progressively made the shake worse,

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so I'd hold the pen tighter still.

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And this became a vicious cycle that ended up

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causing so much pain and joint issues,

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I had trouble holding anything.

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And after spending all my life wanting to do art,

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I left art school, and then I left art completely.

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But after a few years, I just couldn't stay away from art,

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and I decided to go to a neurologist about the shake

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and discovered I had permanent nerve damage.

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And he actually took one look at my squiggly line,

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and said, "Well, why don't you just embrace the shake?"

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So I did. I went home, I grabbed a pencil,

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and I just started letting my hand shake and shake.

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I was making all these scribble pictures.

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And even though it wasn't the kind of art

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that I was ultimately passionate about, it felt great.

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And more importantly, once I embraced the shake,

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I realized I could still make art.

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I just had to find a different approach

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to making the art that I wanted.

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Now, I still enjoyed the fragmentation of pointillism,

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seeing these little tiny dots come together

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to make this unified whole.

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So I began experimenting with other ways to fragment images

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where the shake wouldn't affect the work,

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like dipping my feet in paint and walking on a canvas,

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or, in a 3D structure consisting of two-by-fours,

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creating a 2D image by burning it with a blowtorch.

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I discovered that, if I worked on a larger scale and with bigger materials,

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my hand really wouldn't hurt,

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and after having gone from a single approach to art,

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I ended up having an approach to creativity

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that completely changed my artistic horizons.

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This was the first time I'd encountered this idea

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that embracing a limitation could actually drive creativity.

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At the time, I was finishing up school,

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and I was so excited to get a real job and finally afford new art supplies.

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I had this horrible little set of tools, and I felt like

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I could do so much more with the supplies

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I thought an artist was supposed to have.

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I actually didn't even have a regular pair of scissors.

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I was using these metal shears until I stole a pair

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from the office that I worked at.

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So I got out of school, I got a job, I got a paycheck,

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I got myself to the art store,

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and I just went nuts buying supplies.

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And then when I got home, I sat down

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and I set myself to task to really try to create something

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just completely outside of the box.

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But I sat there for hours, and nothing came to mind.

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The same thing the next day, and then the next,

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quickly slipping into a creative slump.

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And I was in a dark place for a long time, unable to create.

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And it didn't make any sense, because I was finally able

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to support my art, and yet I was creatively blank.

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But as I searched around in the darkness,

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I realized I was actually paralyzed by all of the choices

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that I never had before.

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And it was then that I thought back to my jittery hands.

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Embrace the shake.

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And I realized, if I ever wanted my creativity back,

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I had to quit trying so hard to think outside of the box

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and get back into it.

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I wondered, could you become more creative, then,

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by looking for limitations?

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What if I could only create with a dollar's worth of supplies?

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At this point, I was spending a lot of my evenings in --

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well, I guess I still spend a lot of my evenings in Starbucks —

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but I know you can ask for an extra cup if you want one,

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so I decided to ask for 50.

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Surprisingly, they just handed them right over,

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and then with some pencils I already had,

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I made this project for only 80 cents.

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It really became a moment of clarification for me

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that we need to first be limited

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in order to become limitless.

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I took this approach of thinking inside the box

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to my canvas, and wondered what if, instead of

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painting on a canvas, I could only paint on my chest?

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So I painted 30 images, one layer at a time,

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one on top of another,

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with each picture representing an influence in my life.

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Or what if, instead of painting with a brush,

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I could only paint with karate chops? (Laughter)

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So I'd dip my hands in paint,

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and I just attacked the canvas,

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and I actually hit so hard that I bruised a joint in my pinkie

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and it was stuck straight for a couple of weeks.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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Or, what if instead of relying on myself,

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I had to rely on other people

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to create the content for the art?

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So for six days, I lived in front of a webcam.

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I slept on the floor and I ate takeout,

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and I asked people to call me and share a story with me

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about a life-changing moment.

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Their stories became the art

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as I wrote them onto the revolving canvas.

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(Applause)

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Or what if instead of making art to display,

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I had to destroy it?

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This seemed like the ultimate limitation,

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being an artist without art.

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This destruction idea turned into a yearlong project

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that I called Goodbye Art,

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where each and every piece of art had to be destroyed after its creation.

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In the beginning of Goodbye Art, I focused on

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forced destruction, like this image of Jimi Hendrix,

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made with over 7,000 matches.

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(Laughter)

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Then I opened it up to creating art that was destroyed naturally.

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I looked for temporary materials,

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like spitting out food --

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(Laughter) —

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sidewalk chalk

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and even frozen wine.

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The last iteration of destruction

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was to try to produce something that didn't actually exist in the first place.

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So I organized candles on a table, I lit them, and then blew them out,

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then repeated this process over and over with the same set of candles,

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then assembled the videos into the larger image.

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So the end image was never visible as a physical whole.

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It was destroyed before it ever existed.

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In the course of this Goodbye Art series,

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I created 23 different pieces

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with nothing left to physically display.

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What I thought would be the ultimate limitation

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actually turned out to be the ultimate liberation,

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as each time I created,

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the destruction brought me back to a neutral place

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where I felt refreshed and ready to start the next project.

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It did not happen overnight.

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There were times when my projects failed to get off the ground,

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or, even worse, after spending tons of time on them

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the end image was kind of embarrassing.

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But having committed to the process, I continued on,

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and something really surprising came out of this.

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As I destroyed each project,

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I was learning to let go,

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let go of outcomes, let go of failures,

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and let go of imperfections.

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And in return, I found a process of creating art

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that's perpetual and unencumbered by results.

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I found myself in a state of constant creation,

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thinking only of what's next

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and coming up with more ideas than ever.

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When I think back to my three years away from art,

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away from my dream, just going through the motions,

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instead of trying to find a different way to continue that dream,

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I just quit, I gave up.

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And what if I didn't embrace the shake?

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Because embracing the shake for me

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wasn't just about art and having art skills.

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It turned out to be about life, and having life skills.

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Because ultimately, most of what we do

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takes place here, inside the box, with limited resources.

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Learning to be creative within the confines of our limitations

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is the best hope we have to transform ourselves

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and, collectively, transform our world.

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Looking at limitations as a source of creativity

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changed the course of my life.

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Now, when I run into a barrier

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or I find myself creatively stumped,

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I sometimes still struggle,

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but I continue to show up for the process

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and try to remind myself of the possibilities,

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like using hundreds of real, live worms to make an image,

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using a pushpin to tattoo a banana,

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or painting a picture with hamburger grease.

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(Laughter)

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One of my most recent endeavors

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is to try to translate the habits of creativity that I've learned

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into something others can replicate.

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Limitations may be the most unlikely of places

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to harness creativity, but perhaps

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one of the best ways to get ourselves out of ruts,

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rethink categories and challenge accepted norms.

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And instead of telling each other to seize the day,

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maybe we can remind ourselves every day

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to seize the limitation.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)