Around 1964, when I was about fourteen years old, my fellow students and I were subjected, once a week, to a late afternoon composition writing exercise. We had paper and pen and were commanded to produce a short essay. The subject was at our discretion. Not always easy to come up with a subject. A friend of mine would not submit to the forced, the ordinary.
“My hobby,” he began, “is collecting question marks.” He continued, “Here is some of my collection.” He then filled the rest of the page with a wide variety of extremely decorative question marks.
The teacher was not impressed. I thought it was pure genius.
Perhaps this friend’s creativity was inspiring me when, around five years later, I had to produce weekly compositions for a college English Language course. I was restless the day before. At the dining hall, the dessert was chocolate something—some kind of pudding. Using a knife and spoon, I sculpted it, or perhaps more accurately carved it, into a replica of a block of Swiss cheese.
Later that evening, much later—I never started until around 11:30 pm—a blank page awaited me. A blank mind as well. Until the obvious subject appeared. It was an essay of only one paragraph describing my exercise in sculpture earlier.
It received an A, with a comment on how creative it was. Creativity and desperation are extremely close, it seems.