While I appreciate your asking, and my answer is yes, you are free to quote me with or without my permission.

In the real world I can protect my writing, but in here, there are no courts or judges to adjudicate infringement, plagiarism or any other wrongful taking. If you write in the virtual world, you are giving your thoughts away for free. That’s why Medium writers work so hard to engage readers in such a way, they can earn some money.

You say you are “still learning” and I think you’ve unwittingly entered the creative process.

Old school learning is rote learning. Basically, it’s a linear progression of adding knowledge to our brains — students memorize, test their memorization, and move to the next lesson.

Creatives start out with nothing. If you have a book or instructions, it’s already been created — right? To create something that never existed before, you have to start with nothing. Creatives spend their lives bringing ideas into the world. The wheel, axe, paper, silk, and riding a horse were all just ideas. Some creative human figured out how to make their idea real and walla everyone had a wheel.

Humans are natural replicators. We do not produce. We re-produce.

Creatives are famously and infamously odd, because we are different — we see the unseen, hear the unheard, feel the untouched, taste the untasted, smell the un-smelled, and sense the nonsense. We do all of this in our heads.

By the start of third grade, schools have shut student’s creative capacities down, so they can focus on linear learning.

When I hold a plate up in a classroom and ask students to draw it, every kindergarten through second grade student draws what they see (an ellipse). In third grade, every student draws what they know (a circle). The one or two exceptions will likely draw what they know by year’s end.

The handful of kids who make it all the way through high school drawing what they see are the “creators”. These kids fought their way through school, they bucked the system, defied authority, even rebelled to preserve their creative capacities and they will never give them up. They can’t give them up, their struggle hard wired creativity into their brains — and that is how they think. I have to see what I am talking about and cannot think clearly without sketching. All creatives have this kind of problem.

Mr. Holston, you are accustomed to living in a world created for you (by oddballs and weirdos). Naturally, you came inside the virtual world, expecting it to resemble the real world. Where are the rules, you ask, who’s in charge here, where’s the referee, names, dates, degrees, credentials, etc. In an attempt to impose some order, you hunted down Jessica Wildfire in the real world. She does not exist there, anymore than she exists here.

Mr. Holston, I’d like to help you out, but I’m as lost in here as you are. We are INSIDE the creative process — and the product is far from finished. We’ve only just begun.

By education and profession, I sell my creativity for a living. Rural land-use, community development and culture here in the states and abroad, has been the focus of my work for 35+ years. I came to this work via EPCOT Center. Yup, I’m an oldster too.

Once upon a time, Disney decided to build the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow. They nicknamed it EPCOT Center and went looking for people who could see an invisible city on a few hundred acres of dirt. I was lucky enough to join the design team.

So there we were, a bunch of people who could see things that did not exist, and had the skills and tools and know-how necessary to construct it — and every one of us, saw something different. Our job was to put “our minds together” so we could design one city.

Once creatives engage in collective-thinking, we get the job done. Our mistakes are often our most creative. For example, when drawings won’t work, you have to build models. Well, I got handed a rendering and off I went to build a model, so I could figure out how to build it.

Now, I know the language of renderings, so there is no excuse for my mistake. This particular building was supposed to house AT&T’s exhibit titled the Fountain of Information. My job was to model a linear exhibit across the full length of the wall opposite the entry. But, fountain threw me off. I heard fountain and saw Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona. I thought the stupid fountain was round so I constructed a fountain in the middle of the entry. I do good work. No one has to keep tabs on me. I am trusted.

Along comes presentation day, the clients in their fancy suits file into the conference room filled with gorgeous pastries, fruit, cheese, impressive chairs, super coffee. Our head genius meets and greets, then cues us. One by one, we parade in, set our work in its assigned position and take our seats around the room. True to form, I arrive late. Just as the last designer enters the conference room I catch up carrying my scale model of the Fountain of Information. And froze. My entire team was gaping at me in stunned, shocked silence. I knew something was wrong but had no idea what. Our genius does not miss a beat, he knew what had happened and announced, “the pièce de résistance, The Fountain of Information”. And that’s how a building at EPCOT Center was designed by a mistake.

A whole lot of people here in the virtual world are creating something from nothing. You must engage on your terms, and I must engage on mine. In my mind, this is nothing more, than the old and familiar creative process. Relax, take some time, be patient, and wait for your mind to show you a new perspective. And when that happens, I’d really like to hear about it.

PS. This morning, a Medium article by a writer I never read popped up. It relates to our conversation, so here is the link. https://medium.com/feedium/do-i-need-to-switch-to-a-pseudonym-beef59d7e76d