I almost deleted this image this morning.
It’s the fortune from a fortune cookie. “Dare to dream, for dreams are the seeds of change.”
I looked at these words and thought how completely foolish and irrelevant they have become. I don’t have time to dream or the capacity to dream anymore. I’m just white-knuckling every single day with the hope that I don’t get thrown off this ride and get smashed to pieces.
But..what if…
Dare to dream.
Daring takes courage. Even a fortune cookie knows it won’t be easy.
I found some encouragement for me to dare - - to dream, to sow the seeds of change - - in this episode of the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast.
From the podcast description:
In episode one of our Makers series, Kelly and her daughter Claire speak with neuroscientist Susan Magsamen and Google's Chief Design Officer Ivy Ross about how art and creativity affect our brains and bodies. Their book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, reveals that making isn't just a hobby but a fundamental human need that improves wellbeing, helps process trauma, and enhances learning. Susan and Ivy explain how singing to babies releases oxytocin, how arts education closes achievement gaps, and why creative expression matters for everyone from CEOs to doctors to children.
It’s important to note that their approach to experiencing the arts places a high priority on what they call “making.” For example, Corrigan and her daughter Claire have written a children’s book entitled Marianne the Maker. (It will be coming out in June.) Marianne’s creative expression comes in the form of designing and tinkering.
Have you ever been to a Maker Faire? Then you’ve seen how broad and inclusive the world of making can be.
Many of us learned to see the arts through the lens of “arts appreciation” - - a passive gallery walk through what others have created. In this podcast, the arts include appreciation and creation, because making means active engagement. The guests and hosts elaborate on how both are crucial to our healthy cognitive and emotional functioning.
…a fundamental human need that improves wellbeing, helps process trauma, and enhances learning.
As the current chaos and crazy-making cruelty assaults us, it is so easy to separate from anything that doesn’t look like bare survival. Here we are, just white-knuckling every single day with the hope that we don’t get thrown off this ride and get smashed to pieces. Our worlds get smaller. We become more fearful, feel more helpless.
That’s exactly what authoritarian regimes count on.
The arts should always be in our survival kit because they are an essential part of how our brains were designed to function. But we have been taught that they are an add-on, a luxury, a nice-to-have. When we are connected to creative expression we strengthen and deepen our ability to dream better dreams and build better worlds.
That’s why tyrants are so keen to suppress the arts. Yes, the arts can move us - - emotionally - - on the inside. But they also move us to express, to create, to sow the seeds of change.
Nourish yourself. Listen, move, create, tinker, taste, sing, shout, imagine. Feed your soul, your brain…and strengthen your heart.
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