Co-creativity is the act of making something together — and, in 📝Charles Eisenstein's account, the activity through which people actually come to know one another.
Most adult social life, Eisenstein observes in 📝The Ascent of Humanity, is built on joint 📝consumption — food, drink, entertainment — which passes the time without ever passing the threshold of real connection. Co-creativity is its opposite. Working together on something both parties care about brings out true qualities, inviting each person to show the aspect of themselves the task calls for. "Real intimacy," Eisenstein writes, "comes not from telling about yourself but from joint creativity." Telling, if it comes, comes later — or proves unnecessary.
The modern specialization of work has left adults with little to do together besides talk and be entertained: in place of 📝play we are offered consumption, in place of playmates, colleagues. Co-creativity names what is missing — and what is recoverable. It is the principle behind gatherings like 📝Symposium, reformatted as a space for making rather than consuming.