Topic: The Nature of Creativity

Author: Chris Dunn

If you know me, I’m sure you assume my creativity was spawned by decades of role-playing games, getting my basic Dungeons & Dragons set at age 10 and delving into bringing all the fantasy books I’d been reading to life. And while it’s undeniable that D&D, along with countless other forms of fantasy RPG, have served to cultivate my creativity over the years, its roots run far deeper.

I associate the memories mostly with rain. In the age when TV shows only came in three or four flavors and only came on when they chose, a rainy afternoon was a child’s hell. Spinning the TV dial rapidly by the disturbing fair of daytime dramas and black and white westerns for the fourth time, I would sigh heavily before punching off the box and staring forlornly out the rain-spattered window. There were no video games, no cellphones, no internet. The library of welcome distractions that could lift a bored child out of the rainy-day doldrums, wouldn’t exist for years. While the rain fell, there was nothing to look forward to but hours of mindless sitting until eventually dinner would be served, then maybe a decent sitcom and off to bed. Another day wasted!

“Mom!” I would cry. “I’m So bored!”

Now, I don’t want this devolve into some finger-wagging meme, telling kids today how much better it was when we didn’t have as many options. Believe me, I LOVE all the options, and was one of the first adopters of pretty much every distraction that reality threw my way over the years. I’m merely relating the tale of how my brain was channeled, by my environment, to function the way it does today.

“Why are you bored?” mom would ask.

And I would wonder, “Can she not see the rain?”

But the rain wasn’t point. Sure, we couldn’t go out and run around. We’d get soaked and then sick, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t play. We could use our imaginations she’d explain, and with them, we could go anywhere and be anything, tell any story. A wooden spoon could be a sword. The couch could be a mountain. The storm outside could be a raging hurricane, and we a desperate family of rats living in the belly of a doomed ship on a storm-tossed sea. The world inside my head wasn’t subject to rain outs. I was as free as I could perceive, and my options as many as I could dream.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “That only worked because you were a kid.” And you’re half-right. My cynical teen self would look at this obvious manipulation and scoff until his bangs fell over his rolling eyes. Dreaming didn’t make the day any brighter. It didn’t bring out the sun. It was just an exercise in self-delusion and denying reality. And, yes, it was, but what made it work, what sold us on the experience, was that she’d get down there with us. Down on our level, walking the floors on hands and knees, sharing our stories, expanding our worlds and saving the day from the dreariness of reality.

To this day, I see boredom as a challenge and my mind as the creative tool that helps me escape. This modern world doesn’t really require as much of those old ways but having trained in them at such an early age has shaped the man I am today, the way I approach life, and the nature of my creativity.