Seeing Sideways Summary - 2/27/12

Today we discussed totemic bliss. Our assignment was to spend an hour doing something that makes us happy, to bring back a totem from that experience, and to report on why we enjoyed that activity. This exercise in indulging in what makes us happy is a practice in learning more about ourselves--and by knowing ourselves and understanding our motivations better, we can, from a career perspective at least, be able to better brand and market ourselves in future career choices. To gain more from the assignment, we can ask ourselves:

• How did your activity make you feel? 
• What does your totem represent to you? 
• Why is it meaningful? 
• How does your totem represent you? 
• How does it represent your future self?

As creative people, we need 'play time' to loosen up and renew ourselves. Playing encourages exploratory learning and experimenting; it can result in divergent critical thinking, refreshed mindsets, and consequences--these consequences can be the death, or metamorphosis, of ideas. During your play time, what made you keep or discard the ideas you came up with? What happens when an idea dies--is it stored away for later, or can it be resurrected? Whatever you believe, these explorations and consequences can lead to the metamorphosis of ideas, in a pattern similar to the scientific method. While pondering such questions may seem too deep or even frivolous to some people (trust me, I am not some head-in-the-clouds philosopher, but a realist worrying about preparing for the next day!), the bottom line is that play time--the time in which you can do whatever brings you bliss--is time well spent [in moderation], as it refreshes our minds and gives us new energy to go about our not-as-blissful duties. So go out and play every so often!