Yesterday, Oscar came round as he often does, and being a creature of habit, headed straight for the toy box and the bag of bricks that I made for him. That and the plastic digger are his favourites and only the temptations of Toy Story and "Buzz Light tits" can distract him from this. He usually drags me down to floor level and says something like - "Granddad build a house." or it may be a wall or a boat or a space rocket, and I can usually comply or bluff. This is usually followed by him demolishing whatever I am building, with the digger, and then we start all over again. Yesterday he floored me by asking me to build a planet. I know that he imagines that Granddad can do anything, but I had to admit defeat on that one.
It got me to think about big ideas, and the ability of some to think, not just outside of the box but also outside of their own experiences, and just how does this come about? Do we all have that innate talent? Is it beaten out of us from an early age by being told what we cannot do? I know that my parents had that tendency and maybe their parents before them were made constantly aware of their own limitations and those placed upon them by society and circumstances.
I look at major constructions with a sense of awe. To see something as mundane as a motorway junction from the air is an inspiration. Someone imagined it and made it happen. Skyscrapers mushroom all over the world and each one is an amazing achievement of man's ingenuity and vision. We routinely fly all over the world in fragile aluminium tubes, taking for granted the genius that went into building a device that can carry hundreds of people at great heights and speed.
The history of humanity contains records of individuals who have been inspired to create on huge scales and I admire those who have had the courage to put their visions into effect. Even those architects that built religious buildings are worthy of huge respect and admiration, even though the learning process may have been costly in human life.
We owe our children a future, and only by allowing them imagination and hope, can their minds be freed to imagine. Our education system is not doing that. We force feed them with carefully selected information, like geese being prepared for Fois Gras, and blinker them with lies and dogma. We divide them on cultural and religious grounds and brand them as successes or failures on the evidence provided by inadequate and irrelevant paper exercises.
I wish that I had sufficient vision to imagine building a planet and I hope that Oscar's imagination will not be stifled before he has a chance to grow. Who knows, we may need new planets one day.
It got me to think about big ideas, and the ability of some to think, not just outside of the box but also outside of their own experiences, and just how does this come about? Do we all have that innate talent? Is it beaten out of us from an early age by being told what we cannot do? I know that my parents had that tendency and maybe their parents before them were made constantly aware of their own limitations and those placed upon them by society and circumstances.
I look at major constructions with a sense of awe. To see something as mundane as a motorway junction from the air is an inspiration. Someone imagined it and made it happen. Skyscrapers mushroom all over the world and each one is an amazing achievement of man's ingenuity and vision. We routinely fly all over the world in fragile aluminium tubes, taking for granted the genius that went into building a device that can carry hundreds of people at great heights and speed.
The history of humanity contains records of individuals who have been inspired to create on huge scales and I admire those who have had the courage to put their visions into effect. Even those architects that built religious buildings are worthy of huge respect and admiration, even though the learning process may have been costly in human life.
We owe our children a future, and only by allowing them imagination and hope, can their minds be freed to imagine. Our education system is not doing that. We force feed them with carefully selected information, like geese being prepared for Fois Gras, and blinker them with lies and dogma. We divide them on cultural and religious grounds and brand them as successes or failures on the evidence provided by inadequate and irrelevant paper exercises.
I wish that I had sufficient vision to imagine building a planet and I hope that Oscar's imagination will not be stifled before he has a chance to grow. Who knows, we may need new planets one day.
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