Do you ever get that feeling? It's when you're instantaneously inspired to do a million things at once. Your ideas swirl round your mind like a cyclone, and you feel like your only option is to turn on a faucet and watch them pour out like water. It's a feeling that comes out of a time of stagnation and apathy - you realize just how little you've let your mind work lately. As you've guessed by now, that happened to me.
If you've read any of my previous posts (and let's face it - this page doesn't exactly see much new traffic) you've noticed that both the title and background for the page has changed. I feel that, though it will be slightly tangential, I should explain why this is. The new title and background are mainly a tribute to my favorite novel, Fahrenheit 451. I recently reread this book, which was an inspiration to me back in high school, and it once again produced its mystifying effect. The book and the new title ask the question, "Are you a destroyer or a life-bringer, dormant or active? Do you see the world through an all-too-common lens, or do you wear different glasses?" It's a question I don't ask myself enough. But back to the main trail.
I watched Donnie Darko for the first time the other day, and I saw something in the movie that I recognized. Something about the admittedly odd movie (after all - Bunny costumes?) reminded me of Fahrenheit 451, though I'm not sure whether it was the content or something else. It found a very special place in my heart. But it wasn't just that feeling that made the experience interesting. It was what happened after the movie.
I just sat there. I sat there and I thought. I turned over in my mind just how everything in the movie worked. (It had to do with time travel.) In the end, whether the time travel elements made sense or not wasn't important to the point of the movie, and it wasn't important to my experience. After writing notes and drawing doodles, trying to make sense of it all, I realized something. It had been so long since I had thought about something that thoroughly. It's an effect college has on you if you're not careful. You become a zombie, eating all the brains you can find, never using your own. You analyze, you problem-solve, but it's for no other purpose than to pass a class. You become an information-eater. It's something I could rant about for a while (but who wants to hear a rant?). Analyzing that movie pulled me out of my lethargic state. And you know what? I liked it. It was a mission, a task, an endeavor.
"Endeavor" is a word that should initiate associations for anyone who has taken Cornerstone's creativity course. All at once, old ideas became new, pressing against the walls of my mind, threatening to burst out my ears. I thought of new ventures and projects. I remembered my "Idea Book" (otherwise known as a Capture Machine), something I hadn't opened in months. I began to think again. I didn't fall asleep for quite some time after the movie - there was too much thinking to be done, too many ideas to develop. But I did fall asleep.
Thankfully, my slumber was only a physical sleep. I still get ideas, I still process concepts. But I know I'm always in danger of passing into a creative coma. I won't let that happen. I began to read, to write, to think again, and it feels good. I guess I have Frank the Rabbit to thank for that.
