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