Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Create

He was in Tabakalera, in Donostia, a few years ago. Nature lovers and creators gathered to talk about the environment. We enter a large room and around a large round table we find film directors, writers, sculptors... and some nature lovers: researchers, environmentalists and people like that.

I came to greet the organizer. I asked if I was invited as a nature lover or creator. Face of surprise. I repeated the question, now more slowly. Unable to understand again. Thirdly, instead of bringing nature lovers together with creators, they could not bring nature lovers together. Not yet understood. I said that I am a lover of nature, but I also consider myself a creator. He put on the face of the one who noticed that I was kidding him, and escaped to greet other less grateful guests.

Forgive me, but the verb create, the name of creation, and the meanings that the creator adjective has lately acquired in us, excite me. In print, radio and television, every time a creator is presented they will bring in any kind of person, but never a scientist. It could be a bertsolari, a writer, a film director, a designer, a modist or I know what. With all of them, the motivations of the creator, the creative process (the process, another hateful word), the deep meaning of what has been created, the attitude of society towards it and its aspirations for the future will be analyzed in depth. If a scientist is invited, the journalist, after insisting that he does not know (and does not care much) about the subject, asks about the practical consequences of his work. That's it.

“Every time they introduce a creator, they will bring any kind of person, but never a scientist.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve admired bertsolaris since I was a child, I’m fascinated by literature, there are films that excite me and I’ve been fascinated by the work of some painters. But of the quantum computer that has just been installed in San Sebastian, only its price and usefulness have been mentioned, not the incredible creativity necessary to imagine it, the creative process of those who have designed it. If a few decades ago it was pure speculation, to really imagine and build, how many new concepts and tools have not had to be created?

And what I say about the quantum computer, I could say the same about the latest article in cosmology, about experiments done to investigate the birth of life or about the work of creating vaccines against COVID-19.

Even in the case of those of us who will never get to do science of that level, how much work to design an experiment? What kind of brains are looking for ways to test a hypothesis? How many exercises sharpen our creativity? Do you know which of the works I have done in my last projects has given me the least headaches? Logo design.