Daydream Believer!
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
When I was very young, one of my treasured possessions was a little telescope. It wasn’t powerful, but it was an exquisite, small object. It came in a little leatherette hard case with red velvet inside. And inside the case was this little silica gel sachet with the printed warning, DO NOT EAT.
I was always led to believe that contents were poisonous.
By the time I was in my forties, keeping the weight off was a constant fight. I am an ‘all or nothing’ personality type… the reason for my weight gain in the first place, and the subsequent rollercoaster of diets and weight loss programs. My mantra has always been ‘All things in moderation, except for moderation!’
One of the most successful diets I had, at least in the short term, was a supervised program that involved substituting meals with protein shakes — five times a day. At the time, I was travelling a bit, which often involved being at on-site inspections for most of the day. I figured that the whole ‘mixing up the shake’ on the move was not going to work. I decided to get some plastic water bottles, so I could pre-load the powder and add the water on the go. After emptying the water, the bottle was still damp, and the shake mix went all gluggy! I tried to dry out the bottle using a hairdryer, but that didn’t work, so I put a couple of little desiccant sachets (found inside so many food product packages today) inside the bottles. A little later, I added the powder to the bottle, added some water and shook it up to see if it worked, totally forgetting about the gel sachets.
I drank the shake and then noticed something funny in my mouth. I pulled out a little sachet and, to my horror, realised it was the silica.
Immediately I could feel my throat starting to constrict, and my breathing became laboured. I rushed to the bathroom, and my face was bright red.
I called the emergency Poisons Hotline. I don’t know how I managed to do this as I was clearly dying and was sure I would lose consciousness before they could ever get my address.
I explained, in between gasping for breath and conserving my energy, what I had done. The online consultant asked me to wait online. Wait? Are you kidding? I am about die!
After a minute or so, but which seemed an eternity, the consultant came back onto the line.
“It is inert. Totally harmless. Sand!”
“The reason you are advised not to eat it is that it just passes straight through, though not medically recommended for dietary roughage.”
All of a sudden, I could breathe again! The only victim of poisoning had been my mind, though the red face stayed for a while, especially when my partner returned home!
The beliefs we carry with us from childhood can be powerful, in both positive and negative ways, especially in the understanding and application of creativity. So many of us were led to believe that we are not creative, but that is a myth. We are all creative, but we get confused between artistry and creativity.
If you like solving problems, coming up with novel solutions, creating strategies, connecting ideas and people, then you are creative. In my personal experience, I have worked with many people who claim that they don’t have a creative bone in their body. Yet, the work that they do is profoundly creative, but not artistic.
I find it hard to distinguish between the different types of creativity. In my masterclasses, I often use drawing and watercolours to assist others to re-connect with their inner creativity, so that they might apply it more broadly to their lives and work.
“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent van Gogh
