polka dot suitcase

As I was showering Tuesday, celebrating St. Pat’s by using Irish Spring (manly, yes, but I like it too), I glanced at the shower door. It’s glass, etched with some funky woodish/generic pattern. Anyway, there’s this little guy in there. More like a little face, I guess. We’ve lived here for over ten years, and one of the very first times I showered here, I spotted this guy.

Here he is — magnified many times; he’s actually about the size of the fingernail on my pinky:

Having a hard time? How’s this:

My point today? Human imagination. I yapped about Walt Disney (the man, not the company) earlier. But there are other big imagination-tappers like my faves da Vinci, Einstein, and anyone under the age of five. Why is it that kids can tap their creativity more easily than adults, anyway? Because they’re still coloring outside the lines?

Amazing what the human brain can dream up. Also, sometimes scary. Dogs and cats can’t tap their imaginations like humans. Neither can sea jellies. Elephants, monkeys, and dolphins…maybe. But they can’t act on their imaginations like we can — writing classics, performing concerts, building architecture, solving scientific mysteries, or even doing wacky stuff like one of the entrants to the Human Body book giveaway contest did.  Apart from feeling sorry for the squirrel — hilarious. Fun imagination at work.

I’m hoping to explore creativity and imagination a lot more over upcoming posts…or maybe I’m just imagining I’ll create them…

But in any event, I’m busy scheduling some interviews with people who are experts at tapping their imaginations — authors, scientists, and hopefully some of the brilliant minds at Disney Imagineering. I’ll report back next week on what’s on tap and share how all kinds of dreamers dream up the things they do! In the meantime, examine your shower door, take a look at the clouds, study some inkblots, or look somewhere surprising to find all the little men watching you…