Making a Cup of Tea

Making a Cup of Tea
An area of thought is that Nature provides Universal Resources that allows us to create anything that we want to create. Nature has provided all of the resources for everything that has been created in the past and Nature will provide all the resources for everything that will be created in the future. If a new resource is required at any time Nature will provide it. The key to advancements in all areas of life is our ability to use our collective intelligence to create something from an original thought. The original thought will develop in the mind of a single person, that person will tap into the resources available; raw materials, knowledge of others and the personal willpower to complete individual tasks.
A question arises as to whether we need to know every transaction that takes place within the creative processes. We can argue that it is important to be aware of the processes that lead to the creation of something new and if the processes follow a pattern we can use this pattern to create more new things. The alternative argument is that we don’t need to know all the processes, but we can be aware that they exist; the important thing is to use the resources that are available to us in a creative way.
Making a cup of tea can be used as an example to determine whether we need to know all processes or whether we just need to be aware that certain processes have taken place that allow me to have a cup of tea. As long as I get my cup of tea I could even be ignorant of all the processes that have created it.
Where do we start when analyzing the creative processes in the cup of tea scenario?
At some point in history people would be grazing and almost experimentally working out what they could or could not eat. At another point someone learned how to create and maintain fire. At another point someone created containers that could be placed over fire to heat water. Then someone collected some tea leaves placed some water in a container, put the leaves in the water, then heated the water over the fire, at some point they drank the tea and discovered that it had a pleasant taste. It is possible that these events were occurring independently of each other wherever tea plants and people came together by chance.
Taking a leap forward someone thought about creating tea plantations, these plantations lead to a surplus of tea that could be traded for other goods with neighbouring tribes. As the relative value of tea increased it is possible that conflicts occurred between tribes to control the tea market.
As tribes became more mobile, moving from one area to another depending on seasons, they would harvest the tea and learned that the tea could be dried and therefore preserved.
Moving on again, as a result of greater mobility, greater trading and greater conflict tea became a trading commodity and was transported around the world. Eventually companies were formed to exploit the tea production processes for profit and through advances in horticulture and distribution tea has become available around the globe.
We can however choose to ignore all of the above as long as we have some tea in our cupboard and know that if the tea runs out we can purchase more tea from the local store.
The next key ingredient for a cup of tea is water. How does the water get to our homes? Water is collected and distributed in a number of different ways; most commonly, in developed countries, water is extracted from rivers, lakes and reservoirs, treated then pumped along pipelines through the plumbing systems of each householder and emerges out of a tap. If we gave time to think about every process of thought and action that has taken place to make the water so easily available, we would discover that there has been literally billions of individual creative thoughts and actions and that all of the technological advances have come from collective knowledge that changes over time.
Next we need to give some thought to other creative processes that produce heat and the means of heating, kettles, cups, saucers, spoons, containers, milk, sugar, etc.
Then we need to consider that no two people in the world will experience the tea making and tea drinking processes in exactly the same way. For some the tea process is a ceremony whilst for others it is purely functional. There are different blends of tea, different chemical compositions of water, different environments, even different thoughts and emotions associated with tea drinking.
Again we come to the question, do we need to know all this? Can’t we just take for granted that all the processes have already been created from the universal resources provided by nature, that the collective intelligence of others has manifested all of the tea making paraphernalia?
If we are only interested in our desire to have a cup of tea, and as long as we get that cup of tea, whether through our own actions or the actions of others, then yes we can ignore the individual and collective processes; but it would be nice to acknowledge and be grateful that so many people have been involved in getting that cup of tea to you and this gratitude may enhance your tea drinking mind.
However, if we want to create something outside the sphere of the tea drinking example can we use the knowledge of the processes to lead us to the creation of something else?
Yes, we can and many people do on a conscious level. We know that humans as a species are phenomenally different to all other species, if we think about which species is closest to our own on a creative level we can understand the vast differences that exist, yet at the time of conception, in whatever form, all species are fundamentally the same. It is the genetic information contained in DNA that determines how cell growth develops and how differentiation occurs. At some point it becomes clear that the new creation will have the characteristics of the parents.
The reason why humans are different and so much more advanced than other species is that we are born into a world of collective intelligence, not only are our children exposed to the combined intelligence of our parents we also have access to the collective minds of our extended families and communities. As children develop and begin to communicate and use things they are subconsciously aware of the world around them. We school our children and develop their minds, we teach them academic knowledge and vocational skills, we encourage them to experiment and find out how things work, eventually each generation adds to the collective intelligence of the human species. We have developed communication networks to the point where billions of people can communicate knowledge to billions of other people. We no longer live in isolated tribes or communities, we now live as a global tribe.
Universal resources are everything that is available in nature for our advancement and the most important resource that is available to us is collective intelligence. We are at a stage now where nothing is created independently; no knowledge is learned without the use of existing resources. When an individual has an original creative thought, that thought can only be put into action through transactions with other people. Nothing can be created in a vacuum. What stops people from achieving what they desire is the failure to communicate their thoughts to other people. But if individuals have faith that there is a collective intelligence which is a resource they can use to get what they want and if they use the collective intelligence effectively they will get what they want. Even if what they want is a “simple” cup of tea!