Lifeskills Through Games

In the previous edition of this serialised feature Guestimedict was introduced, a game that sharpens children’s skills to estimate, predict and make informed guesses.

This episode discusses an emotional block to creativity that prevents one from leading a creative life; a block as a consequence of fear of a negative evaluation of oneself by society, fear of criticism,fear of drawing the attention of others to what one is doing. This fear causes one to filter all actions that one could take, through the sieve of how society would view the action. This constant filtering of potential actions through reflections off the social mirror is a block that prevents one from exploring life in all its fullness. In this episode we propose an experimental activity that can gradually remove this serious block to creativity.

- Jeyakar Vedamanickam

It was a Sunday afternoon. The family was on its way for an outing; no specific agenda except to have a good time. They arrived at Baiyappanahalli metro station, for a metro travel experience. They had just missed the previous train and the next was a good 10 minutes away.

‘Who offers to loudly bleat like a sheep?’ asked Raj.

Raj posing strange questions was not new to the family. ‘Not me’, responded Shama and further clarified, ‘At any rate, not here, Dad’.

‘Why not?’ queried Raj.

‘You expect us to make a spectacle of ourselves in public?’ It was Taj who answered. Two boys, one bearded and the other bespectacled, had occupied the bench nearby. Both were engrossed with their smartphones. Pointing to the boys, she whispered, ‘Do you want them to think that I am crazy?’

‘Do you know them?’ asked Raj. Taj shrugged her shoulders.

‘So, how does it matter whether they think that you are crazy or whether they believe that you are Nobel Prize material?’

Taj thought for a while before she responded, ‘Some unknown fear, perhaps’. ‘It’s an irrational fear,’ Raj explained. ‘I read the book Conceptual Blockbusting written by a Stanford professor emeritus, James Adams. It’s a book about the blocks that prevent people from being creative. He suggests this experiment of bleating like a sheep, in public. It tells us how strong this irrational, emotional block to creativity, is. This fear not only stops us from bleating like a sheep, but also from taking several useful and helpful actions.’