Ingenuity

I've always admired children for the simple fact that there are rarely any inhibitions concerning their creativity. The world is a brand new place, and while they don't really know the rules, they have a distinct advantage in that their imagination is a very real guiding force in their lives. Sometimes I feel blessed with all the knowledge that I've acquired as I've aged, but it's almost just as easy to become burned by this very same knowledge.

The more you know about the rules of life and 'the way things work' in our interpersonal communities and in nature, the more your imagination becomes restricted in a way. Our notions of how we have come to believe the world works becomes so embedded into our minds, that it becomes genuinely difficult to approach a problem from outside of a given paradigm.

I think that part of the problem is that, as adults, we have far too much faith in the things that we have learned. We take for granted, quite frequently, the possibility that we could in fact be mistaken. This is where children are at such an advantage. Children are used to, on a daily basis, hearing claims about the way things work, coming up with their own ideas on the matter, and all the while being corrected by their parents on the way things actually are. Children are more than willing to refine their own ideas, because they are in an inherent position of ignorance, and on some level, they know this.

However, having nothing more than their imagination at their disposal, children are in the position of being able to think in completely uncommon ways about the world that is presented to them. Sometimes these methods of approaching problems are not very useful. However, when trying to find solutions to problems that elude our more traditional means of reasoning, sometimes assuming the mental frame of a child can actually open up doors that we weren't even able to see in the first place.

A solid example of this is brainstorming. Brainstorming is a very common tool across many disciplines, even in the professional world. Brainstorming is a particularly effective tool for two very important reasons: It allows for a free, non-judgmental space for the exchange of ideas, and it allows us for a brief moment to tap into the immense power of our imagination, of our subconscious.

Daydreaming is not a conscious act. This isn't to say that we aren't aware of it, or that we can't guide it. But the fact remains that the act of daydreaming or fantasizing is often one of the last imaginative links that we have to our subconscious when we grow out of adolescence. Across the duration of humanity we have slowly replaced activities that demand a great deal of imagination for ones that require less or none. The art of storytelling was lost to books, books to television, board games to videos games, and so on.

Technologies have allowed us to replace mentally challenging activities for ones where the entirety of the visual and aural experience is presented to us. I'm not here to pass judgment on the effects of technology, but instead provide observations.

Technology unburdens us from a plethora of tasks. We no longer have to hunt and gather, live seasonally, or follow animals for food. However it is particularly important to remember that Technology, with a capital 'T', isn't inherently one thing or another. It isn't evil, it isn't good. Technology can be almost anything that changes the way we interact with the world around us. This includes things like tools, but also more abstractly things like methodologies and techniques.

The reason that there is so much discussion concerning the inherent morality of technology is probably linked to the fact that quite often if a technology can be invented to solve a given problem, and the foreseeable gains outweigh the foreseeable consequences, it will most likely be implemented. The problem is that the things we actually lose in the implementation of these technologies are seldom plainly visible from the place that we are standing. That, coupled with the overwhelming excitement and curiosity that we tend to experience around new technologies, lends to a very reckless human history of technological progress.

More on this infinitely digressive diatribe later.

In a world full of chosen ones

The weird thing about the way humans are built is that they tend to see everything through a completely ego-centric lens. This tends to make sense, as we live our entire lives through our own eyes, and without our own survival we would lose the only perspective we know. Nevertheless, this perspective gives us a very poor view of our lives and the world around us.

I find that if you talk to anyone in their 20's about what they think is going to become of their life, there is a striking similarity in the kind of responses you get. Very few people really and honestly believe that they know what is going to become of their lives, but everyone seems to have the same deep seated feeling that somehow the world will work out in their favor. It is really common for almost anyone to believe that they are in some way special, and regardless of their actual success or talents in life, everyone tends to see a really incredible potential in themselves. That if somehow they could align the stars in their favor they would inevitably rise to the top of their respective field.

Perhaps there is some truth to this, perhaps anyone put in the right circumstances really could accomplish nearly anything. But this glassy-eyed optimism tends to lead to incredible passivity among most people. If we subscribe to the idea, at any level of our subconscious, that fate has something special in store for us, what then is the motivation for getting up and doing something today? If the world was just waiting to reward us, all we would have to do is sit around and wait for our day to come, right?

This is most likely just a sour projection of my own shortcomings onto the rest of the world, but I would be surprised to discover anyone who hasn't felt at least the slightest bit special, different, or deserving at any point in their lives.

Do I have a point? If I ever did I probably lost it a while ago, but the only thing I can really offer is to try to do everything you can to make your life happen today instead of tomorrow. Maybe we can all do it together? Let me know how it goes.