One of the exercises in previously mentioned book ‘The Artist’s Way’ chapter 1, is to make a list of your ‘imaginary lives’.
If you had 5 other lives to live and money or learning and training were not an obstacle, what would your list look like?
Mine look like this:
- Children’s book author and illustrator
- A physicist
- An animated movie voice over
- Cognitive scientist – study of mind and intelligence
- Art historian
The first one is obvious. That is what I am working towards now.
-Physicist: have you READ ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’? Does it not blow your mind, thinking of the actual makeup of the universe? And the scale of the universe? I am so curious about time fitting in to all this. How does time really work?
-I have always thought it would be really fun to be a voice over actor for an animated Disney / Pixar movie.
-Cognitive scientist. This is really interesting to me after watching a Ted talk on language and how the language you speak affects the way you think. I looked up what type of scientist this speaker is, and here is a definition: Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology.
-the last one, I have always enjoyed learning about histories of Art and how it relates to society at the time the art was created. I love learning about this.
I kept my list to 5 things, but there are so many other jobs out there that I didn’t even know existed which are so interesting. I really wish I had paid more attention in high school to find out about all the possibilities out there. Looking back, I feel like I was in a bubble. It could be because I didn’t live in a big city, I wasn’t exposed to the vast selection. I also think that I didn’t imagine big enough. I didn’t question myself – how can I find out about all the other options out there. That is a flaw with the pursuit of what I could enjoy, and what I am capable of.
I am a lot more confident now and give myself much more credit for what I an achieve.
For now, I will continue to focus on the first one, and embrace my love of art and stories, but it is always fun to imagine and I don’t want to stop learning.
Hugs,
Devon