RKYV Column #4 - Scorning in Society

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Column 4 - Creation In Our World: Scorning in Society

Greetings, RKYV readers! I hope everyone’s fall season is starting off splendidly. Pittsburgh right now has been surprisingly beautiful; we have had almost no rain and many colorful leaves illuminating the sidewalks.

Between my classes I’ve found time to consider another flaw in our society when it comes to the creative. This month’s topic is a contradiction that was brought to my attention years ago.

My concern involves teachers telling us to be creative, and parents saying to us that we should go for whatever we could imagine. We’re told these simple ideas from a rather early age, and yet…things just don’t seem to work as they should when it comes to cultivating this creativity. On the average, citizens are only partially encouraged to actually listen to this piece of advice, if encouraged at all.

The two most obvious ways I can think of this are the mocking of games and professions that require imagination, and the cutting of any classes that could stimulate the mind.

Dungeons and Dragons is the most scorned of the creation branch that I can think of. While we see published novels and art galleries every day, D&D books are usually hidden in a back corner and cost a wad of bills more than what those of us with an arts-interest budget want to pay. Plus, if anyone plays D&D they become a sight of laughter for everyone else, especially before the college years roll in.

And frankly, this just seems a shame to me. I never played D&D, but it wasn’t from a lack of interest; more a lack of fast-on-my-feet creation reflexes. I’m the type that needs time to play with my ideas and develop them.

My friends, on the other hand, were obsessed with the game throughout high school, and I could see why. The creation within D&D gave them complete control of a world they created, an escape from reality that even offered solutions to reality problems when they came back to Earth.

In simple terms: it was healthy for their minds. Imagine that.

Yet it seems that anything worth creating is scorned more often than not. How many artists were mocked as no good, before their art began to make history? How many authors were ridiculed and written off, left to die before their works became best sellers?

For a more recent example – the mocked TV shows known as “Pokemon” and “Digimon”. I do dare say they have lived far beyond their years and deserve to rest in peace; but I also dare to admit I was a loyal fan to both in their beginnings, when the idea of the monsters and the lessons from the people in both were appealing to my little girl’s mind. Look how much they’re spoofed on now. It’s almost disappointing, to see almost no acknowledgement of their possible good.

My beginnings as an aspiring fantasy writer came from creating monsters to fit in with those two TV shows. I even dare to say a few of my good qualities came from watching that show, with its nutty main characters who never seemed to grow up and still just kept learning.

Speaking of writing, how about the jokes surrounding liberal arts majors about how they’ll never live a satisfactory and wealthy life? There’s a stigma about liberal arts majors that actually leads to colleges not declaring themselves as liberal arts colleges (yep; just saw that in a local newspaper). While adults who work in these professions and college know better, the public doesn’t; and let’s admit it, what the majority says usually passes as the truth. It shouldn’t work that way, but it does.

The ignorance of creation benefits is not limited to the above, sadly; creative and musical classes are being cut from school curriculums in America’s attempt to boost intelligence scores. In my high school, students were encouraged to take Honors and AP classes rather than music and creative writing. The only creative writing courses were offered for my Senior year (and I know that the school has reformatted the curriculum in the single summer since I left). Any other writing courses were designed to analyze specific questions and spit certain answers back at the teachers.

It seems it has never once occurred to our superiors that classes that allow creativity and beauty to bloom are what help our intelligence in the long run. To play the violin and to sing was to create and learn how alter and adapt to various keys and dialects within life. It sounds bizarre, but I can say from experience with both throughout my life that it’s true. Besides, they’re relaxing and stimulating at the same time. Music is creation at its peak; although from the recent bands hitting MTV I dare to see even this creative avenue is being butchered.

Either way, the people that run our country called U.S.A. never stop to think that the meager task known as reading can help increase vocabulary. Certain games have the ability to tutor in basic math, the simple math that is prevalent in all higher levels.

In other words: our skills and our greatest lessons lie within exposure, not a coddling and memorizing education and a life sitting in front of our computers and TVs. (Hm...does any of this sound like a “Fahrenheit 451” utopia existence?)

My advice to everyone who reads this is:

1) To broaden your horizons. Listen to more forms of music than you do now and see what you learn; check out a genre of book you never tried in the library before. I think you’ll find you learn more from that than anything else.

(And yes, if you so desire, form that D&D group of yours.)

2) To raise public awareness of the benefits of creativity. Get enough people on your side to campaign for the return of the music and creative writing classes. Don’t limit it to your own neighborhood; go national if the situation calls for it. (Remember – it’s supposed to be a democracy. The politicians and leaders should obey the public demand for fear of losing their status. This applies to every societal problem, not just this one.)

3) Encourage any couch potatoes you know to join you in some creative fun in one form or another.

And “creation” is not limited to writing and art. I think next month will call for some ideas on letting out a muse in some other fashions.

Best of luck until then,
Larissa