Since yesterday, I have been sitting at the laptop thinking that I have no idea what to write for an article – the deadline for which is midday today (Thursday), roughly five hours away.
Even though I say I have no idea, I do not really think there is such a thing as "no idea." Even the most mundane thing, especially when seen from a new perspective, can inspire an idea. In the vast inner universe of our consciousness we have the potential to expand upon any concept through association and deeper exploration – akin to examining a seemingly simple object through a microscope and discovering that it is an intricate and complex world in itself.
Straight ahead of me is the fridge, with various fridge magnets adhering to its upper half. I could write an entire article on those fridge magnets – what each one looks like, what the words on some of them say to me, where I got each magnet, or who gave them to me, what those people mean to me and I to them...and so on. Such an article would be on personal lines, each magnet and the collection as a whole giving insight into not only aspects of my history but also elements of my character.
I am now going to create and implement a concept using the fridge magnets to stimulate my mind for article-writing purposes – not unlike the way a jump cable restarts a seemingly dead battery.
The approach:
I will write several topics of national interest on pieces of paper and, standing in front of the fridge, eyes closed, I will place each piece of paper at random under different magnets. These pairings will stimulate my mind to see the topics chosen from new perspectives.
Topics chosen:
1. Children of today
2. Adam Smith Square
3. Domestic air/seabridge
4. TT’s 60th anniversary of independence
5. Future of TT
With eyes still closed, I chose one of the magnet-and-topic combinations.
The resulting topic is Children of Today and it is paired with a rectangular Mode Alive fridge magnet featuring a blue emperor butterfly on a leaf. The text in the upper left corner of the image is: “I can’t survive with pesticide.” The text in the lower right corner is: “Come alive, Mode Alive.”
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This random pairing instantly brings to my mind the recent shooting incidents involving innocent bystanding children. On August 1, a ten-year old girl suffered a broken bone when a bullet from a Malick shootout struck her left leg. More recently, on August 16, in Morvant, a bullet passed through the head of eight-year-old Jovan Price, fracturing his skull. The boy was in a crowd of children among whom gunmen ran, while shooting at their human target. Another little boy was also shot in that melee.
Something in a Newsday article on the Jovan Price incident that caught my attention was:
"When Newsday visited on Wednesday, the area was void of children playing outside – an unusual sight for the July/August vacation.
"Residents said since the shooting children are afraid to play outside."
The tragic reality of
