A Thursday thought . . .

  
I was driving in our neighborhood the other night when I noticed in the vehicle ahead of me there appeared to be so much entertainment going on, it seemed to be more family-room-on-wheels than transportation.  Why anyone would need to watch movies on their way to soccer practice is beyond me, but I'm probably just getting a little old and cranky about all this newfangled technology.  However, it got me thinking . . .

I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents as a child, and that meant many trips back and forth between their homes and ours, ranging anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes.  I loved being snuggled in the back seat, watching the lights pass along the freeway, squinting and un-squinting in an attempt to create as many visual effects as I could -- blur, focus . . . blur, focus . . . craning my neck to see the stars.


And in the daytime, I loved watching the stories whiz by -- the lake my dad thought was bottomless as a child (even though there were reeds growing in the middle), the spooky abandoned warehouse with the yawning black holes where the windows used to be, the point of the mountain where the storms were legendary and the driving often hazardous, the shimmering mirages on the asphalt that always mysteriously evaporated as we approached.

I invented worlds around all of these things, and relished the combination of familiarity and possibilities inherent in the passing landscape as we drove.


I was teaching myself to see -- training my brain to make something worth looking at by arranging and engaging with the images in my mind as they went by.


There was music in the car as well -- my family sang together a great deal, and when my parents weren't interested, we kids carried on with a wide ranging repertoire.  My brother (who is now a renowned musician and conductor) recently told me that almost everything he knows about harmony he learned while driving in the car with the family.  I remember one particularly long drive during which he and I figured out the 4 part harmony to "Sweet Adeline" and then sang it over and over, each trying to cover two parts by bouncing back and forth.  To this day, when I hear music, I hear the harmony.


So I couldn't help thinking, as I watched the van go by in the dark playing 2 (two!) different movies, about what those kids were missing out on.  Because I developed creative skills as a result of entertaining myself in the car that continue to serve me well in almost every area of my life.

What you're seeing on a screen is someone else's vision, and no matter how entertaining or engaging the images, their brain did the work to give them shape and meaning, not yours.  Sure, you can benefit from soaking it up, assigning it emotion or importance and thereby making it part of you, but --

the initial leap from idea to image will forever belong 

to the mind that created it.

And how can the brain be expected to make those kinds of connections if it is constantly spoon-fed ideas --  pre-digested and already executed by someone else?

One of my favorite little coffee table books is this one:

Faces, by Francois and Jean Robert

I love it because you need only spend a moment with its images 

and the way you see is transformed. 

And then you begin to wonder how you didn't see these things before.

Which in turn makes you wonder what else you're not seeing.

But then of course, you have to look. 
At things, not pictures of them.

First-hand seeing and thinking, 
not second-hand . . .

(p.s. Small Works is featured on Fairytale Treasury today -- 

a lovely blog with a lot to see.  A celebration of people's ideas 

made real through the magic alchemy of craft.  Please stop by!)