Hi, I’m Oliver Ding, founder of CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab) and TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement). Over the past few years, I’ve been focused on developing Creative Life Theory.
To further this work, I launched Possible Press, a project dedicated to transforming Creative Life Theory into practical tools and programs for knowledge creators.
On July 31, 2024, I completed editing my 33rd Possible Book, which includes 4 parts and 121 articles, totaling 1,739 minutes of reading and 460,835 words (about 922 single-spaced pages).
I’ve been updating my list of Possible Books via a Twitter thread. On June 16, 2024, I published the 32nd Possible Book: Activity as Formation of Concept.
Here’s a snapshot of my publishing journey:
- 2019: 1 Possible Book
- 2020: 2 Possible Books
- 2021: 7 Possible Books
- 2022: 8 Possible Books
- 2023: 8 Possible Books
- 2024: 6 Possible Books
After publishing my 30th Possible Book on March 31, 2024, I realized I had been on a 5-year Creative Journey from March 2019 to March 2024.
This realization inspired me to undertake a Creative Life Curation project in April 2024. I analyzed 30 Possible Books to uncover the patterns and insights of my creative journey.
I also created a 100-slide deck in Chinese to narrate the full story of this journey. In May 2024, I shared this deck with friends in China, and one of them sent a list of questions for an interview. One question stood out:
You refer to these manuscripts as “Possible Books” rather than official publications. Why is that? Do you plan to turn these manuscripts into official publications, or do you prefer to keep them in this exploratory form? Alternatively, will they be available as free e-books?
I use [Knowledge Projects] as the core unit of my creative journey, focusing on [Connecting Theory and Practice] with [Knowledge Frameworks] as the primary output. These manuscripts are not intended for formal publication; rather, they are creative containers that capture the results of these knowledge projects and house these knowledge frameworks.
Given their length—over 250 pages—and their formal, rigorous content, I refer to them as [Possible Books]. This term reflects their role as exploratory tools rather than polished publications.
From the perspective of [Creative Life Theory], these manuscripts represent a unique [Genre] particularly valuable for studying the [Early Discovery] of [Creative Life].
The Possible Press project embodies this approach. We will continue to publish Early Ideas, Unfinished Projects, and Private Conversations as accessible resources for Creative Life Research!