From my daughter's bedside: arted and crafted

This little piggy and the sheep that doesn't appear so well in the photo were made by my daughter and her grandmother last week. I love that they do these types of things together and my daughter loves it to.

I think that due to the availability of consumptive entertainment, children are losing exposure to creative pastimes and the understanding that things can be made, not just bought. Every evening she comes back from a day with the grandparents, the first thing she wants to do is show what she has made for us.

These little tasks and experiences add up and if we as adults could track back all the events to childhood, it is likely that we could see a clear path of why we like the things we do and, why we do the things we do. Often, our behaviours are much less influenced by large events and much more directed by a series of small experiences that seemed completely inconsequential at the time but nudged us into new paths.

These things can be both positive and negative but can subtly change how we see the world, how we approach, embrace or turn away from various experience. Some people rush into the world and give themselves freely, some hold back or expect the world owes them something like reward or apology for their experience.

If we examined what has formed our attitudes to life, we would likely find that not much of it is actually ours at all and, most of our had been installed without our explicit knowledge. We hold these things we claim are part of us, but have never investigated what we as an individual actually is by removing all that is not us.

There is the life philosophy that the examined life is not worth living but even this only holds true when there is enough ignorance to not even all the questions. I feel that many these days avoid asking by turning to activities that full the space but do not give the space to think to deeply about it. A process of active ignorance of the self.

It is an interesting approach considering many want to claim themselves as unique individuals while they watch the same shows, read the same books, play the same games and discuss the same news while never creating anything at all, let alone anything that is uniquely theirs.

I see a society that discourages self reflection as one that encourages centralized direction as if they can keep people experiencing via consumption, they can manipulate what is consumed and therefore, affect behaviour of large groups with precision.

The art of control and the craft of manipulation used to corral the masses into manageable pens that can be activated and engaged with a few trigger words that have been silently embedded into the culture. When the group becomes animated, each individual believes that they feel connected because it is a natural part of who they are, unable to see the programming that has compelled them to react emotionally.

We are all hard-wired to be influenced by our environment which means we should be very careful about what we bring into it. Some look to build a zone of security by excluding risk and challenge, some look to become stronger by including those same things.

What I know for myself though is, creativity is not born through repetition of what is consumed. That is mental slavery.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
_{(posted from phone)}