Creativity...with a Hint of Madness

Once, I was an enigma. As a child I would do the most peculiar things in my spare time; pace around the room and mutter to myself or vividly reenact scenes from movies when I think the rest of my family isn’t watching. In one such scenario, for example, I performed an entire battle scene from “Lord of the Rings” with perfect execution. As I’ve grown up into the man I am today, the solitary reenactments and pacing have remained one of the only constants; however, I’ve now taken a different approach. What was once a carefree way of passing the time as a child has now become a brainstorming technique in which I plump the depths of my imagination while broadening my creativity. Furthermore, as my awareness of social phenomena and the calamities of life has increased with age, so too has it become more necessary for me to pursue ever-imaginative means of escapism. This too is where my alone time spent imagining other extraordinary universes and events has come into play. Now, I am creative. Now though, I am working toward taking ideas spawned from hours of pacing and brainstorming, and expressing them through one of the arts that excel at: writing. Soon, I will be a novelist.

  

Once, I was an enigma:

Slash! Chop! Swoosh! Thwak! In a frenzy, I swung my weapon before me in a flurry of cuts, thrusts, jabs and slashes. I readied my sword as the next group of fiendish enemies converged all around me. Vile, snarling, biting fiends hell-bent on bloodlust attacked me from all directions, slashing their crude blades at me which I deflected and evaded with ease and agility. In the distance, a booming, menacing voice howled over the battlefield as I made battle with my foes.

“Find the halflings! Find the halflings!” the thunderous voice boomed across the battlefield.

I panicked as I realized that my foes, the evil orcs, were following their leader’s command and were now searching for Frodo. I couldn’t let that happen; by my honor I couldn’t let it happen. As if on cue, I flew into a ferocious rage, diving from place to place as I hacked and slashed my way through the horde of heavily-armored orcs. With my allies, Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf fighting alongside me, I threw all caution to the wind and tore through the group of orcs in front of me, intercepting them before they could get to Frodo.

With me and my two allies engaged in ferocious combat with the orcs, another booming noise suddenly caught my attention. The ringing of a horn echoed through the forest; the loud noise encompassing the entire battlefield. Legolas, after knocking his bow and letting loose an arrow into one of the orcs, turned to me with a panicked expression.

“The horn of Gondor!” the elf gasped.

I unsheathed my blade as the realization hit me: Boromir. Boromir, one of my other compatriots, was surely the source of horn that had been blown. The signal had undoubtedly been sent as a cry for assistance…a cry that I was surely ready to answer. The orcs that I had been previously engaged in combat with were forgotten as I ran for the source of the sounds, desperate to get to Boromir before the orcs overwhelmed him. I met another orc in head-on combat, ready to sever limb from torso before suddenly…

The sound of a door opening catches my attention. Within that instant, the orcs are gone. Legolas and Gimli are gone. The heavily-wooded surroundings of my battlefield are gone. Footsteps echo down a hallway as I spin around to meet the new-coming interlopers that had interrupted my epic quest. A hefty man and a blond-haired woman approach me carrying bags of groceries in their hands. Stacking and piling up the groceries onto the kitchen table, they turn to me with incredulous stares marking their faces as they see before them a ten-year-old boy in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms performing a solitary “Lord of the Rings” movie reenactment.  

Only then do I realize, under the smirks and raised eyebrows of my mother and father, that my battlefield was nothing more than a living room complete with a couch, armchairs, and a fireplace. My orc foes were empty particles of air. Legolas and Gimli: particles of air. My bow and arrow…air. My dazzling sword was nothing more than the wooden stick that my dad would use to brace the sliding glass door at night. With a sheepish blush and a deep intake of breath at the fact that I had been caught in the midst of acting out one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, I quickly discard the wooden stick that had been my pretend sword and move into the kitchen to help put away groceries.

 

Now, I am Creative:

Nearly a decade later, that ten-year-old boy remains as peculiar and enigmatic as he had ever been while wielding a wooden sword, pretending to slay imaginary orcs in his living room. Sure, he is older, wiser, more mature and more knowledgeable in the ways of the world (to an extent), but he still spends a great portion of his alone-time in his bedroom, brooding, pondering, pacing and visualizing far-off worlds and extraordinary characters with vivid detail. And of course…I still can’t get enough of “Lord of the Rings” and I’m not afraid to admit it.

To this day, I still continue to do such things in my solitude. I may not go to such lengths as to physically reenact a battle scene from a movie like I had when I was a mere predictable lad; however, I still do take curious pleasure in vocally or silently replaying the lines and scenes of books and movies that have left some sort of impact on me. When I reflect back on my teen years and childhood, I often wonder what this harmless compulsion may have stemmed from. Is it even a compulsion at all? All human beings have secrets and do strange things in their solitude that they wouldn’t want other people catching wind of, including their closest friends. Especially their closest friends. If half the people I interacted with could see the ridiculous sight of me pacing my bedroom muttering to myself, they’d probably be right along with the other internet trolls on Youtube leaving a deservedly unflattering comment below my video. Still, I can’t help but feel that I am an odd one out of the bunch and that maybe this tendency to “act out” fictional and unrealistic events is some sort of abnormality. Does that mean that I would go back and change anything if I could? Do I regret every immature moment of playing actor in the comfort of my own house? Nope.

When I look at this time spent alone, the dual thoughts of, “a lot of people pace and talk to themselves” and “no one does this but me,” are constantly contending with each other. Because I was still on the fence about this, I also took my family’s thoughts into consideration. Obviously I was not so naïve as to think that my incessant pacing and the occasional talking to myself didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of my “clan.” It’s just that until recently, I hadn’t really thought about how they looked upon this behavior. My mother would tell me when I pressed her about it that she had always been aware of the pacing and self-conversation and the reenacting of movie scenes as a child. She had also admitted that she’d initially been concerned about this, as any caring and responsible mother naturally would be.

“I thought that you may have been restless, unhappy, or bored,” she said. “I had never seen anyone pace back and forth like that. I didn’t know if something was wrong.”

Now of course I have tried to assuage these concerns by assuring her numerous times that depression or self-loathing is not the fuel that drives this crazy locomotive. Despite this, both of my parents, particularly my father, would go on to state that my general demeanor and this pacing behavior makes me rather enigmatic; as if it is impossible to know just what is going through my head at any time. I can’t say I disagree with my parent’s view that I am an enigma. After all, I have so much difficulty figuring myself out as it is; I can’t imagine how hard it must be for my parents or a complete stranger to do so as well. My family and I are in unanimous agreement too that it also makes me a bit more reclusive in some ways.

True enough; perhaps it is possible that I take reconciliation and “alone time” to the extreme. Hell, I do take it to an extreme. As a result, I have to admit that my personal future has become a bit of a phobia for me. When I am off living on my own in the coming years, I beg to question whether or not I will actually leave my house for necessary doctor’s appointments or undertake any other manner of responsibilities necessary for my well-being. Will I become so socially detached, living in my own imaginary universes that my entire sense of social etiquette will deteriorate? Being a socially awkward recluse is something that is ok when I’m already living in a house with three other people, but when it comes to me actually living on my own, well, the prospect is a bit daunting to say the least

“Definitely not like most people,” my sister agreed, “You’re little more introspective, you like to be by yourself thinking more and you don’t like to be around others as much.”

Introspection. That there is the key word that comes to mind when I reflect back on so many pacing scenarios. For, in truth, despite the social retraction that comes with it, my “episodes” of random pacing and self-conversation are attributed not to boredom or frustration or depression, but pure reconciliation. More importantly, the pacing and the muttering are the reflections of an inner creative thirst within me that cannot be easily quenched.

Up until about two years ago, the emphasis of my thought-dwelling was on movies in particular. The fantastic imaginings and vivid worlds created by such minds as George Lucas and Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg and James Cameron (among others) became my personal playground to explore and reenact at my own leisure. This however, began to change when a revelation hit me like a flying brick. Why should I dwell upon the worlds created by someone else?

These men have already staked their fame and fortune by creating wonderful worlds for the rest of us to breathe in. Instead of fueling their fire, why don’t I fuel my own for a change? Why don’t I take this “alone time” and put it to better, more productive use for myself? I don’t have to dwell on and regurgitate adventures that have already played out on the big screen and small screen when I can create my own worlds and form my own abstract realities. Now, as I pace the house, muttering to myself like a madman, I imagine myself in the shoes of my own characters rather than J.R.R Tolkien’s.

In one such scenario, I pictured myself in the shoes of Lictor, one of the characters from my novel (currently untitled and still in-progress). Although a figment of my own imagination, I still try to wrap my mind around the thoughts and emotions running through this poor fellow’s mind based on his unique experiences. As a fugitive runaway alien on a strange new planet, I could scarcely grasp the confusion and fear and frustration he feels at having his former life stripped away and replaced with a new “immigrant experience” here on planet Earth.

Here, in the very same living room where years ago I reenacted that battle scene from “Lord of the Rings,” I find myself once again entering another realm. Only this time, the characters and the environment that I immerse myself in is one of my own creation. I place myself into the role of the tall, lanky, pale green-skinned extraterrestrial adolescent that is Lictor, while I picture the imaginary form of his companion and female cousin Areya sitting across from me. Our backdrop is a back alley in Manhattan, New York. Our appearance: scavenged human clothing recovered from a dumpster. Our calamity: integrate ourselves amongst the human populace of NYC now that our pod has crash-landed off of Liberty Island.

As the event progresses, Areya, adorned in a scavenged Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie, presses a wad of dollar bills into my hands. I unravel the wad of money and stare at it incredulously.

“Human currency. How did you come by this?” I ask her, my voice mimicking that of Lictor’s.

“The clan tacticians provided me with a sum of this currency during my previous reconnaissance; in the event that I was required to purchase human wares. This is what I have left over from that mission,” Areya explained to me/Lictor.

I look at the imagined dollar bills more closely and realize the direness of our situation due to the fact that we only have less than a hundred dollars to start with on this strange new post-industrial planet. In that instant I realize just how similar Lictor and Areya’s problems are to the quintessential immigrant experience.

I then retract myself back out of my story, jumping back into the real world as the oven timer rings out from the adjacent room, signaling that my pizza had finished cooking. Just like that, I literally make a switch from one, imagined world to the real world.

When I look back on it, I realize that this is the drastic switch that I’ve made since my childhood. I’m still a compulsive daydreamer with a wild imagination; this of course hasn’t changed. However, I now am able to take this vivid imagination and this tendency to reenact these imaginings in order to fuel my creativity and brainstorm for ideas and scenes to add to my stories. More than that, it makes me feel more passionate about the things that I am writing and the characters that I am writing about. Suddenly, their lives are my lives; their problems are my problems; their pain is mine; their world is now my world. Therefore, my daily pacing and my joy in writing creative fiction go hand in hand now. I could not do one without the other.

Although the general behavior of pacing and reenacting imaginary events is deeply personal for me, I also feel that it relates to a broader understanding of the world in general as well. In a world in which social, political and economic turmoil (among other problems) constantly plague our societies at every turn, I believe that every human being is entitled to retracting themselves back every now and then. For me, this is slipping away into another imaginary realm, either through my writing or through my solitary reenactments. I know that we all have our civic responsibilities to society and that we all must contribute to the “big machine” in order for things to function properly. However, if we were to adhere to these concrete principles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without an ounce of escapism, we would all go insane.

Not to mention, while looking at such upheaval as war, famine in Africa, economic downturn in America and Europe, and so on, I realize that it only makes me want to escape into my imagined worlds even more. Of course, I still do what I can to help those around me in need while wishing and hoping that the major hardships in the world would evaporate; however, I feel it is absolutely necessary to slip away from these issues completely every now and then. We are only human after all; we can try to fix the world as much as we can, but we do need to slip away from all the troubles of our real world from time to time.

 

Soon, I will be a novelist:

Although I’ve lived a relatively simple, sedentary life, I realize now that the brief experiences that I’ve had in which I plant myself psychologically into another place, time and universe has led me to the apex of my creativity. Hours spent pacing rooms of my house, reenacting scenes both original and unoriginal has led me to the point where I strive day in and day out to craft entire worlds through the novel and short story. My social interactions and my social consciousness may wane as time goes on, but my creativity will only flourish, so long as I continue to brainstorm ideas for my stories and continue to imagine myself in different places.  

“You’re great at coming up with ideas and I think you have the drive to put them into words,” my friend Tom said.

“You act like an emotionless robot and you don’t like being around other people sometimes, but you one-hundred percent have what it takes to become a writer. You have such a natural-born gift for storytelling,” my mother added.

I know deep in my bones that I have the passion, determination, imagination and creativity to become a novelist. I may not end up becoming J.K. Rowling of course, but I know that I will at the very least get a novel published at some point in my life, even if it’s the last thing I do. I didn’t butcher the majority of my social interactions in place of hours of solitary brainstorming only for it all to lead to nothing. 

I was once (and still am) an enigma. As a child, neither myself nor those around me could figure out why I spent so much time pacing and reenacting my favorite movie scenes aloud to myself, turning ordinary daydreaming into a calculated daily routine. Next, I came to terms with my creative potential when I turned these imaginings and solo reenactments into a medium through which to gather, brainstorm and explore ideas for my creative stories while also using it as a way of slipping away from the terrible hardships and realities of life. Particularly now, in a time of such economic turmoil, I realized now more than ever the importance of allowing oneself to slip away from the grim truths that hound us at every corner. Finally, I will now take these experiences and put them to productive use. All the “adventures” that came with the pacing and reenacting and the self-exploration have culminated in me working toward funneling these ideas in a print form that I am hoping to one day share with the rest of the world through a book. Soon, I will be a novelist.