What if?
For anyone who is reading this, you’re so welcome. Today I’ll be writing about creativity. For me it is the driving force in my life. And it always has been as far back as I can remember. I was a shy child, quiet and introspective. But I had a vivid and active imagination.
I have a fraternal twin, she was outgoing. Most people would question why are these two so different? They are the same ages, exposed to the same environment and family. Both spent twelve years incarcerated in the Catholic School. We had to wear uniforms including the same shoes. All methods to make students conform, act the same, lose all personality and originality. Methods to control children’s behaviors.
From the outside it looked like I was conforming, fitting, but I wasn’t. My imagination knew no bounds. I made up stories and tell them to anyone who will listen. I would draw pictures of animals and insects, and flowers who could talk. I was a daydreamer. I made things out of odds and ends that I found in my house and out in the yard. I would run in the house and say, “Mom, Dad look what I made.”
The question I asked myself as a child was “What if…” What if the sky wasn’t blue and white? What if I could fly like a bird? What if I could talk to animals and we could understand what they were saying and thinking?
But the real question is why aren’t all people more creative? Why isn’t creativity supported? Why is creativity inhibited in children? People who think outside the box are the people that become scientist, engineers, artist, writers, innovators, musicians, poets.
By 
putting two dissimilar things together, two unrelated things you can come up with new ideas, new inventions. Think about it. Think about how different your life would be if you let your imagination go and not stifle it. Open yourself up to a new way of thinking and being in the world. What if birds decided to float down to the earth instead of flying,
UMBRELLA BIRDS by Susan A. Culver
I think “incarcerated” is a really accurate way to describe being in working class schools! Upper class kids in expensive schools are encouraged to be creative, told they can be anything. But the purpose of public education for the rest of us seems geared towards creating obedient workers. I feel most people are probably naturally creative, but it’s beaten out of them. Because of who they are expected to be and their supposed place in the world. “Artist”, “entrepreneur”, and “inventor” seem to be roles reserved mostly by the upper class for themselves, thanks to this lovely system. I’ve seen this so many times working professionally in the arts. Who gets to be “legitimate”, and who is not. I’m sure you can guess where those lines fall lol!
I’m glad you didn’t let incarceration destroy your creative spirit. Working class artists have a spirit of cast iron. Something that should be celebrated, imo.
This is Susan’s twin sister Karen.
We couldn’t have been more different in our likes an dislikes and our thought processes Susie was a person that kept almost everything to herself. So, there are many things I never really knew about her until we were older. And she was able to transform herself and to a more normal and open person. We really didn’t become friends until we were adults and married. We are very close now and have been since we were young adults not that we haven’t had our differences of opinions and outlooks that we came to appreciate and respect one another for our differences and more interesting she is always surprising me with the different pursuits that she continues to develop throughout her life she never sits down she’s always going and it has made her a wonderful person.