Amazing how distracted we can become by the simplest things. The internet is a wonderful tool and a terrible temptation. Even the most innocuous of things like checking the bank account can throw everything off kilter. I found a charge I did not make and of course the company has no cust. svc on weekends and now I'm annoyed about that and I'm supposed to be thinking about childlike imagination and frakkin' Winnie-the-Pooh and I hope Alice stays down that damn rabbit hole! Okay, okay, deep breath, cleansing breath . . . , ratsin', fratsin', deep breath . . . crap! the Cardinals just lost! FOCUS! FOCUS! Breathe, breathe . . .
I like the first line in chapter 7, "Creative products are the evidence of our evolution." We think when we create, we create when we think. The mind is always working, even we are asleep, dreaming of far away places and the next big whatever. Art is everywhere, creation is everywhere. Every thought is a creation. Where do the thoughts come from? I find the rest of the chapter difficult to distill into single thoughts. It covers quite a lot in the realm of society and its effect upon the artist. This has always been the case. And there have always been those who step out of the box and push against the societal norms, not all with positive results. Oscar Wilde is mentioned in the chapter, but he is just one of many. Galileo was imprisoned by the church for his ideas of the universe. Da Vinci painted religious art but also did a lot "on the side" that the church did not or would not have approved. Now we see him as the very idea of Renaissance. A person comfortable in all the disciplines of academia. Personally I believe he was an alien.
Ahh, play. I intend to show this chapter to my parents. Reading for fun always takes a back seat when the academic year starts up again. I do what I am supposed to do for school but after awhile I can no longer focus on texts. There comes a time when I am only reading words. Just words on a page. No longer is there any grasp of the message or the ideas the author is trying to present; nothing there but letters formed together in random lengths. This is when I go play. Everyone has a different idea of play I'm sure, for me it might actually involve reading something else. Something that I can just take in but not have to focus on or keep in the forefront of memory. Sports Illustrated, Batman, Coastal Living, Cigar Aficianado, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wolverine, you get the idea. Maybe a car race on TV or House. (New season Tuesday!) Maybe music, walk the dog, drink a beer, take a drive, again you get the idea. I believe play, in whatever form you give it, is essential to creativity. Artists look at art, writers read and write, musicians listen to music, runners run, hikers hike. Some of that can be considered work but it is also play and essential to life.
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