What to Do When the World Is On Fire
On Clichés, Creativity, & Dr. King Deep Cuts
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire. — Charles Bukowski
It’s fair if you’re a creative person and you’re exhausted right now. I mean, I am.
Here I am writing with the audacity of a seven-year-old doing lines of Pixy Stix, about how Joy, Wonder, and Trust have the potential to beat out messages based in fear and division. Meanwhile, it’s full-on 2025 out there! The government is shut down. Violence is filling my feed with a ferocity only outmatched by Hims ads. And in a plot twist NO ONE saw coming, AI seems pretty bent on doing more soul-sucking than life-saving.
So I understand if you don’t want to hear my schtick… that your message is meaningful, that in a world of false narratives, you hold the pen to change the story, that messages like Joy, Wonder, and Trust are worth fighting for.
You might be puffing an imaginary cigarette right now and rolling your eyes while saying in your best French accent, “cliché.”
And I wouldn’t blame you.
But for one moment, before you flick your imaginary butt on the ground and reach for the unsubscribe button, may I suggest there may just be a method to my madness?
I’m trying to do something. Imperfectly. Inconsistently. But I’m trying nonetheless.
Dr. King used to say a phrase that didn’t get as much airtime as lines like those from “I Have a Dream” or “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.” This was more of a deep cut.
“Human salvation,” he said, “lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
I’m a big fan of that term…creatively maladjusted.
We all know what it means to be “well-adjusted.” It’s something we learn from the time we’re kids, from saying “excuse me” after burping at the dinner table and taking standardized tests, to eventually allowing the last appetizer to sit there on the table even if nobody else takes it. Broadly, it means to conform successfully to all of our society’s norms.
But King argued that if those norms themselves become inherently unjust, good people should refuse to adapt…not by mere rebellion or chaos, but through a kind of creative refusal, one that builds a better order.
To break it down even more:
Maladjusted = refusing to accept injustice, inequality, or violence as normal.
Creatively = finding nonviolent, constructive, imaginative ways to resist and reform those injustices.
I am trying to practice creative maladjustment. To not roll over to cynicism or complacency and just let the whirling chaos win. To possess, as Sister Ruth Marlene Fox put it, enough foolishness to believe a difference can still be made.
If that’s you, know that you’ve got a friend.
Creatively Maladjusted people are all around us.
I believe people like us are everywhere. Every company has them. Every school. Every government. They’re the ones who can’t quite adjust to processes that have gone stale, who speak up vs. tune out when messaging starts to sound tone-deaf or the story starts losing its soul. Rather than “quiet quitting,” they’re quietly fighting—burnout, disruption, and uncertainty—to make things more joyful, honest, and thoughtful. The wisest institutions listen, mentor, and learn from these folks, understanding that they are cultural antibodies. They keep sacred institutions human…and keep humans sacred institutions.
So I’m planting my feet stubbornly in the soil. I’m going to keep writing, speaking, and creating for anyone who will listen…not because I’m pretending things aren’t a mess or that we’ll walk through the fire unscathed, but because I believe that our creative maladjustment, that small voice whispering “this isn’t how the story needs to end,” can help author the building blocks of a different chapter…even if all we add is a single sentence, word, or punctuation mark.
If that resonates, I made something small for us to remember why we’re here:
The Creatively Maladjusted Manifesto
We believe human creativity is an act of moral resistance.
We believe beauty still has purpose.
We believe honesty scales.
We believe wonder is not naïve or cliché… or any other French words that sound snobby when said while waving an imaginary cigarette. Wonder is necessary.
And we believe the next chapter of culture belongs to those maladjusted enough to love it back to life.
Feel free to share it.
CJ Casciotta
Writer, Director, Dad
Founder & CEO, Reculture
a message design & media production company.
Follow Me: Instagram. Linkedin.