Creative Thinking

When I was a child, one of my favourite subjects was Creative Thinking.  "Creative Thinking", you might be thinking "What is that?"  Well I am aware that Creative Thinking is not a class in all places, but for 3 glorious years I lived in a very unique place mentioned in this post.  And it was there that I took a class called "Creative Thinking".

In Creative Thinking, I was asked to think of possible solutions for problems, and think of inventions I'd like to see.  We drew pictures of these solutions and inventions and wrote about them, explaining the pictures.  Nobody was allowed to have anything that resembled any other students work.  We had to think of solutions on our own.

That's one thing that really annoyed me when we moved away from there: the teachers expectations that my answers would be like everybody else's.  Even in art she'd hold up some sort of example, tell us what to do, and then get upset when I did something that didn't look like every body else's.  To this day, I think her way of teaching was dead wrong.  Is the point of education to be to make everybody think exactly alike, copy other people's work, and be little clones?  Or is the point to encourage learning and individual thinking?  I argue the latter, but many teachers think it's the first.  It mystified me and annoyed me then, and it still mystifies me now.

I waited, thinking that some day I would take another Creative Thinking class.  Maybe it was offered in a different grade?  Maybe some day...  But some day never came.

Until Now.

I have a huge journal, that I bought for something else.  It's bigger than the regular 8.5 x 11 paper, the paper is soft, smooth and creamy white, and it's unlined.  I bought it for something else, but used about 10 pages of it before discarding the project I bought it for.

Well...  I'm going to use it for Creative Thinking.  I loved that class.  It brought me happiness and joy to think of unique solutions and inventions.  Why can't I do that now?  As I said in previous posts I already discovered listening to Raffi while drawing in adult colouring books is still fun, even though I'm adult.  Why wouldn't Creative Thinking class?  And why can't I just sit, with this huge journal, and think of solutions to the worlds problems, and inventions I'd like to see, and anything other creative ideas I have, and express them in this journal.  Why not?

And that is what I'm going to do.  Starting today.


P.S.

You can read about Raffi and Adult Colouring Books in these three posts.

Raffi and Adult Colouring Books

I had an absolutely fabulous day

Adult Colouring Books and Regression.

Adult Colouring Books and Regression.

Ok.  I know this is my 3rd maybe 4th day talking about colouring books, and this will most likely be my last post on this topic.

I was thinking a lot about it today, as I drove around the city doing errands.

As I said before, I took in psychology class that adults doing things children do is called regression and regression is "bad".  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) at this time, I don't remember much else about regression.  A whole two years of psychology classes, and all I remember about regression can be fit into one sentence.  Oh well.  I remember my math classes much better - and that is a different subject all together.

So...  Have many people in the world regressed?  Are we all doing psychological bad things by colouring in colouring books?  No.

There are many ways of dealing with stress that are considered "adult" and are not considered "regression" and therefore "bad".  Drinking, smoking, shopping, having coffee, watching porn and doing drugs are all "adult" ways of dealing with stress.  All of them cause problems, and all of them can be considered "harmless" or "harmful", depending on the person you're talking to and the extent to which they are done.  I don't have to mention the effects of all of these things.

Colouring, listening to children's music, and swinging on the swing in the neighbourhood park, all of which I have done at times of stress, are not harmful to anybody.  It's not harmful to me or to anybody else.  It maybe unconventional, but nobody ever harmed their lungs with a colouring book, or had a little too much children's music, or overdosed on swinging in the park.  Nobody was hurt by another person's colouring, or set up a support group of friends and family of those who swing in the park.

And so, even if this is regression, I think my way of dealing with this stressful time in my live, is perfectly safe, harmless, and acceptable.

Whoever said "regression" is bad just didn't understand how much fun it is to colour.

"Reduce Stress", on of my doctors said. "But how?" I wanted to respond but didn't.

My dog is trying to get comfortable on the couch, having resigned herself to not being allowed to go outside and bark along the dogs already barking outside.

My mother just went to bed.

Colouring books and crayons await me at the table.  I bought new colouring books and new crayons today.  I wanted a crayon sharpener, but they only come in the big pack of crayons.  I'm glad I did.  All sorts of cool colours like metallic and gel colours are included in the large packs.

I like colouring with crayons more, than pencil crayons or markers.  There's just something about it.

In my psychology classes, I took I learned about regression and it's evils.  At this point I can't remember why it was bad, to regress, but I remember it was bad.  Am I regressing?  I don't know.  I do know that a whole bunch of other people are regressing along with me, because adult colouring books are very popular.  I'm not sure about the crayon's part, or the children's music part, but it is relaxing.

I need relaxation.  And I need to reduce my stress.  Apparently some of my health problems are due to the prolonged stress I've been under.  For the last 5 years, I've been under a lot of stress.  Deaths, illnesses (one that included neurosurgery and 100 days in hospital), a house fire, a dog dying, the family house being sold (it was in the family for 70 years), two car accidents (one a major head on collision), and a heart attack, have filled our family's activities in the last 5 years.  We've been moving from crisis to crisis, without much time in-between each crisis.  We've just had a really really bad string of bad luck.

And all that stress?  It's causing me health problems: unable to concentrate, unable to remember things, stomach aches, back aches, and many other things.

The doctor told me to cut down on my stress.  But how?  If I knew we'd have a house fire, I would have prevented it.  There wasn't anyway I could have prevented the deaths.  And know body knows what caused my mother's Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus.  I have no control over the health of my father's heart.  If I'd know that somebody would turn in front of me, on a busy 80 km / hr road, I would have taken a different road.

How?  Just how does anyone propose I stop these horrible things from happening?  I would have stopped them if I could.  Believe me I didn't want these things to happen anymore than my doctor did.  Or the librarian (when we told the library that they weren't getting any books back because they all burned in the fire, the librarian said "I hate fires", as if we had a fire just to make her live difficult.)

And so I'm doing small things.  I'm colouring in adult colouring books.  I'm listening to Raffi.  I sing loudly in the car.  I play with my dog.  I watch TV shows that make me laugh.  I blocked everybody who annoyed me in any way from all social media accounts.  I block every stranger on social media that offends me in anyway, because I have enough stress without arguing with strangers on the internet.

I've done big things like cut off all ties with a cousin, who was prone to calling me and telling me about the mistakes I made.  I didn't need to hear it, and although I love this cousin, I just don't want to have anything to do with somebody who is "only telling me the truth", when she says that back when we were children or teens or some other age along time ago that I did such and such and it was a mistake and if I hadn't done that then, I wouldn't be suffering now.

We bought another dog about a year after our last dog died (from smoke inhalation), and pet and play with her daily.  I try to make choices that will make me happy.

But the thing is: it's not really working.  I'm still living a stressful live, and that constant stress: the cortisone and adeline that pumps through the human body when it's under stress, is causing health problems.  Or at least that's one of the possibilities.  There are other possibilities of why I'm getting sick, and I am perusing those ideas with my doctors as well.

And there's one more thing I'm doing to help with my stress: I'm doing it right now - writing this blog.  And you, by reading this blog, have helped me tremendously, because as I said yesterday, looking at the stats, helps me.  It makes me happy when people read this blog.  And for that I thank you very much for reading.