During the past few days I was thinking about imagination, creativity and humor. Three things stimulated my thinking. One of these was a quotation from Horace Walpole’s ‘Man of Letters.’ Here is Walpole: ‘Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.’
Gentle Reader, as you might remember my son, Nathan, is an artist. During my reflections these past few days I was thinking about Nathan and the many ways his imagination, creativity and sense of humor combine and emerge in his art. Yesterday as I was opening my refrigerator and while I was continuing to hold my son in my thoughts I found myself asking a ‘Nathan Question’: What if we slept in our refrigerators?
I sat down and put pen to page as I held the three words: Imagination-Creativity-Humor. Here is some of what emerged into my consciousness as I held the question: What if we slept in our refrigerators?
Well, Gentle Reader, we might well dream about skiing, ice skating, snowball fights and slipping on ice. Our heads might lie in the freezer and we would experience a deep sleep. If we kept our money in the refrigerator’s freezer we would have some cold hard cash. ‘Not tonight dear, I have a head cold’ might be a common refrain. We could, literally, reach out for a midnight ice-cream snack – yummy. What else could happen?
I love Nathan’s imagination, creativity and humor. He works with clay. At times he might even work with silly putty. Nathan’s asks ‘what if’ questions fueled by his sense of humor – these questions free up his imagination and what emerges through his fingers as he manipulates the clay (or is it, indeed silly putty) brings smiles to our faces.
As I was thinking about all of this I began to recall a number of riddles that are also good laugh releasers. These are, some would say, ‘classics.’
Question: What do you call a clairvoyant midget who just broke out of prison?
Answer: A small medium at large.
Question: Why did the ‘wanna be’ explorer buy a sheet of sand paper?
Answer: He was told that it was a map of the Sahara Desert.
OK… not quite the funny bone ticklers. How about exploring some conversion factors? Consider these:
3 1/3 tridents = 1 decadent
4 seminaries = 1 binary
1 milli-Helen = the amount of beauty required to launch just 1 ship.
I leave us this morning with a quotation that captures Imagination-Creativity-Humor (thanks to Margaret Thornley):
Beet ever so onion there snow peas legume.