Is creativity lost? I was just looking for some games and toys to play with a 3-year old. This particular 3-year old has a house fun of toys that blink, sing, run around on their own, and require numerous AA batteries. When I hang out with her, we pick up a stick. The stick might be a tree we plant, or it might be a boat we chase down a little stream. Sometimes the stick is a spoon for stirring and other times it’s a whip to get moving. She loves playing with a simple, ordinary stick more than all those electronic gizmos. When she’s a little older, I’ll teach her how the stick can be a magic wand, or a little bigger stick can be a horse to ride.
This same 3-year old piled pencil after pencil on her dad’s legs and I said, “Pick up sticks!” The dad said, “Oh yeah, I forgot about those!” Creativity isn’t gone. It is a characteristic of everyone when they are young, along with curiosity. They go hand-in-hand. As we get older, we forget to be curious, and creativity goes into hiding. But they are there, waiting for you to release them again. So go find a stick and learn to play again. You’ll know how if you try.
