Tiny Paper: The Making of Creative Life Theory (v2.0)

In this part of the Tiny Paper series, we share the story of making Creative Life Theory (v2.0), part of Oliver Ding’s 2022 book draft, Creative Life Theory: Building a Knowledge Enterprise.

These seven excerpts document Oliver Ding's multi-year journey, from 2020 to 2023, in developing his Creative Life Theory through three distinct waves of development. The theory moves from an initial focus on Creative Action to a broader concept of the Creative Course, heavily integrating influences from various academic fields, notably theoretical sociology (especially the work of Ping-keung Lui), Activity Theory, and Ecological Psychology.

Ding details the creation of numerous interconnected frameworks and tools, such as the Creative Life Curation framework and the Universal Reference framework, which are designed to help knowledge workers and creators understand the relationship between individual action, knowledge creation, and collective culture through processes like Subjectification and Objectification.

The sources also explore the author’s practical application of his concepts by managing a network of Knowledge Centers and developing different creative identities through "mental moves" and "creative dialogues" between theoretical ideas.

Check out the original article to see diagrams and explore the full details of this story.

We, at Possible Press, will collaborate with several knowledge centers to publish a series of Tiny Papers.