Everyday Canvas

Miracles, Creativity, and Idea Searching

Prompt: "I keep my heart and soul open to miracles." Patrick Swayze
What is your take on miracles?

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The word miracle may mean different things to different people. From its religious or supernatural perspective, it means an unexplainable happening that takes place against the rules of nature; for example, a person suddenly taking flight with no appendage, vehicle, or tool or a seriously sick person suddenly being healed by the chanting of a shaman.

To me, every day is a miracle as the workings of a human body or the birth of a child. Sometimes, wild animals are not afraid of me even if they are much smaller than me while grasping that I could hurt them if I wanted to. Some days I suddenly recall some old information that has been buried in the depths of my mind, and just my recalling ability of such a far-away thing feels like a miracle to me. Then, there’s such a thing as telepathy when I am thinking of a person, they either show up or call, or the phone rings and I suddenly know for certain who it is at the other end.

I don’t know what Patrick Swayze means by being open to miracles. To me, life is a miracle, and therefore, everything in it is.

Prompt: “Every time you learn something new, you’re expanding your creative potential,” says Yonatan Levy in his book, The Other Ideas: Art, Digital Products, and the Creative Mind.
What do you think is the relationship between learning and creative potential?

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I think not just any learning but learning with understanding helps a person to be creative. When we learn without understanding, that doesn’t help us with our creative undertakings; for example, memorizing material in school just to get a passing grade.

Inside every creative project, there lies a kernel of understanding the idea that may inspire a project. Whether writing fiction and poetry or painting a picture or creating a solution for a scientific problem, the creative process is the same because the creative process involves learning or preparation plus imagination, then letting the ideas incubate, then letting an a-ha! moment surface just like the sudden light bulbs in cartoons, and finally, the last step of making sure the idea will work.

With that process in mind, the most creative ideas are born to people who are physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually devoted and involved with their missions. This may sound a bit materialistic, but in essence, it is just the opposite. It has to do with following one’s heart and devoting oneself to a venture.

Prompt: In what ways can you expose yourself to outside ideas, interests, and viewpoints to use in your writing, aside from your reading and the internet?

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I like people and mostly write about people and living things; therefore. where people congregate and interact are the most important places for me, such as airports, waiting rooms, hospitals, police stations, train stations, parties, debates, meetings or all kinds, school playgrounds, libraries, stores, malls etc. I may be involved with the people in such places or I may just be an observer. The latter, however, is what I prefer the most.

I also like nature. Thus, I like sitting quietly in one place in a park, a beach, the woods, and the nature preserves. For this, my mind always requires some stillness.