Amoeba

You made me dream again...

As corny as this seemingly sycophantic phrase may seem, I’m talking about finding creativity in the least expected place. I’m talking about how someone or something could make one think as they would in a dream state.

Dreams, no matter how strange or silly they are, almost always consist of two types – They’re either methodical or haywire.

Methodical dreams are constructed around fuzzy logic. Which means however strange or silly the logic of the dream might be, every scene or image seen in five to ten seconds follows the logic and premise of the last five to ten seconds in a consistent sequence. It is a continuation of a varied display of facts, making the facts more concise and detailed as the dream progresses into a solid shape.

Haywire dreams are more cryptic in nature, every so often following the sequence observed in a stream-of-consciousness story. The conclusions, not to mention most elements in this story, are unanswered mysteries, which we may or may not think out in the course of our lifetimes.

Unbiased thinking, unstructured thought, the notion that sarcasm and incredulity are equally important viewpoints, and random but consistent moves to absolute silliness are essential in keeping one’s sanity; especially when the person in question is either far removed, or far ahead in creative thought, from the rest of structured humanity. There is never a certain path to creativity and creative thought. What matters, are the byways we move through to get to an idea.

Inspiration, or at least the context in which the word is mentioned, reeks of arrogance and ignorance in equal measure. To claim a specific thing or person changed ones outlook is to say everything else observed, imagined and thought of is unimportant and irrelevant. And to claim thus, is to state we have nothing left to learn, improve, or ponder over. It’s one of those cultural inconsistencies we create periodically to feel better about ourselves; similar to farcical social emotions attached to the words Hope, Caring, Sharing, and Nurturing. Let’s not even get into tedious terms like Everyone’s a Winner. It would be an exercise in futility, and would take an incredible amount of restraint to refrain from the use of the f-word a million times in a sentence, like picky schoolchildren trying to debate whether jelly doughnuts or Superman is cooler. Tiresome premise, irrelevant argument. Empty talk, even if it’s based on perfectly charming, even innocent premises, is still empty talk. Likewise, encouraging mediocrity discourages people who actually take the effort to create something unique.

If someone or something made you, the reader, think this way, do not treasure the experience. It’s the sort of knowledge or perspective that’s meant to be shared. What we fail to recognize is that these people or the material they created helped hone a perspective that was simpler to understand, and calmed our frustrated individual heads into thinking straight and laterally. And, just occasionally, as a result of this, we’re able to look at one of our own creations with a sense of wonder and genuine accomplishment.

Vague creative outbursts, or articles addressing them, are forgiven in the larger scheme of things, I hope. //