While I am on annual leave, here is a creativity post about my favourite Mythbuster. Find the time to play! It will revitalise you.
If you think play can’t get you anywhere in the world, then have a look at the achievements of Mythbuster Adam Savage. Play has led Adam to a deep interest in science and a rewarding, somewhat lucrative career. http://www.adamsavage.com/
Adam describes his career this way: “I’ve been building my own toys since I was five or six, and have worked in the Special Effects industry, both film and commercial, for the past eight years or so. I have also worked as an animator, graphic designer, rigger, stage and interior designer, carpenter, scenic painter, welder, actor, writer, and Television Host… As a collector of skills, I’ve worked in metal, glass, plastics, neon, injection molding, vacu-forming, pneumatics, hydraulics, electronics, casting and moulding, welding, brazing, machining, lathing, wood, animatronics and robots. Adam built himself the dictionary stand below.
I’ve worked on over a hundred TV commercials, a dozen or so feature films, and am currently hosting the show “Mythbusters” on the Discovery channel. I’ve worked on Star Wars Episodes I and II, Space Cowboys, Galaxy Quest, Terminator III, the Matrix sequels, and A.I. among others. I’ve done R&D for toy companies, acted in commercials and films, and done props and sets for Coca-Cola, Dow Corning, Hershey’s, Lexus, and a host of New York and San Francisco theater companies. I’m also a sculptor, of mixed media assemblage, who’s had my work represented in over forty shows in San Francisco, New York and (of all places) Charleston, West Virginia.”
“If I can get inspired, I can imagine it. If I can imagine it, I can create it.” They key is to believe.*
Imagination is something people believe they lose, or don’t need as they get older. Nothing could be further from the truth. The function of imagination in our lives changes as we transition from childhood to adulthood. Instead of imagining ourselves as firefighters or princesses, we start to visualise how we will handle the events and challenges we face in everyday life. For example, have you every daydreamed about how you’d like to get back at the boss, or about the kind of car or perfect lifestyle you’d like? That is still utilising your imagination.
So, as a responsible adult, whether or not you still want to be a fireman or a princess, how do you make the most of your imagination? The most obvious technique is daydreaming. Sitting or lying in a comfortable place, and lazily turning things over in your mind is a wonderful start. It also is a valuable use of wasted commuter or waiting time. The other technique, and the most abandoned by adults, is play. The role of play doesn’t really change in adulthood. It still prepares us to deal with real life situations; reduces stress; teaches us new skills; and encourages us to put new things together in new ways. What does change as adults, is the type of toys we play with.
As adults we like to build. Home architecture and garden planning software, D.I.Y. projects, landscaping: this can be a form of creative play. We like model trains and planes, spaceships and sailing ships. There are many television shows and magazines promoting our love of crafts, home decorating and cooking. Messing around with a blank page or a blank canvas can be play. Anything you enjoy which you can experiment with can be play. The difference between serious work and play is only your attitude and approach to it.
All images in this post are Copyright Adam Savage and have come from his web site. http://www.adamsavage.com/
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DISCLAIMER: To be true to my geeky heritage, I would like to state that the negative use of the word ‘toaster’ in this blog post in no way includes “After Dark’s” Flying Toasters, who were always the good guys. Particularly the baby ones. “When there’s a job to be done, the flying toasters will be there…” I wish they would bring that screensaver back.
In 2000 I published a memoir writing course. It has been revised four times and edited by three trained editors: two at University level. I have put countless hours of work into perfecting it, but guess what? If you read through, you will still find very small typos hidden in it like Easter Eggs. That drives me to screaming point!
So, how do we overcome this? Make your work look new! When I started blogging, I discovered that I would pick up mistakes in WordPress’ preview mode that I couldn’t see in the writing window. In preview, the font size differed and words were in different spots on the page. If you’re working in a word processor, you can try for the same effect by changing fonts, changing margin widths, altering text color, or opening the document in a totally different word processor.
Vonnegut has typically used science fiction to characterize the world and the nature of existence as he experiences them. His chaotic fictional universe abounds in wonder, coincidence, randomness and irrationality. Science fiction helps lend form to the presentation of this world view without imposing a falsifying causality upon it. In his vision, the fantastic offers perception into the quotidian, rather than escape from it. Science fiction is also technically useful, he has said, in providing a distance perspective, “moving the camera out into space,” as it were. And unusually for this form, Vonnegut’s science fiction is frequently comic, not just in the “black humor” mode with which he has been tagged so often, but in being simply funny.”
For the past three years, I have been writing my memoir. It’s actually been more like going to graduate school – learning the craft, practicing, toughening my skin for critique and rejection. Not all a walk in the park.
I see stories everywhere. 
Just to see if anyone would notice, during the early 1970s Cleese added one obviously fake film per year to his annual filmography listing in Who’s Who. For the record, these fake films were “The Bonar Law Story” (1971), “Abbott & Costello Meet Sir Michael Swann” (1972), “The Young Anthony Barber” (1973) and “Confessions of a Programme Planner” (1974). Although Cleese confessed to the gag in the 1980s, mentions of these bogus films still appear from time to time in scholarly works on Cleese, including the entry in the Encyclopedia of Television, 1st ed. (1996) edited by Horace Newcomb.
So be brave. Have a good look at a variety of interesting web sites, social networkers and other Internet goodies and see what you like. Try them for awhile, then cull what is too much, doesn’t feed you or just drags you into a negative mindset. People take me off their Twitter feeds all the time. I see my stats run all over the place. I have learnt to let it not bully me into staying connected where I don’t need to be.
