THINK INSIDE THE BOX

THREE YEARS AGO IT WAS THE CARDBOARD BOX. THURSDAY IT WAS THE STICK. And I was glad to hear it. The National Toy Hall of Fame inducted the stick into its showcase of classic toys this week. Media around the world ran the news. Curator Christopher Bensch told the Associated Press “It’s very open-ended, all-natural, the perfect price — there aren’t any rules or instructions for its use.”

As I morph into a middle-aged curmudgeon I’m getting cynical about the degree to which the landscape of play seems to have shifted from exploring possibility to attaining mastery. Cardboard boxes, sticks and their timeless brethren engage active forms of imagination and fantasy. Video games and similar digitized, mechanized, and battery “operatized” toys of the computer age, in my opinion, are mostly passive in nature and are less about spurring the mind to ideas than they are about achieving top scores, advanced levels, and outcomes defined by the manufacturer. (There are exceptions, of course. I like what I’ve seen of the Wii, and its ability to engage active personal expression into an experience otherwise controlled by those who designed it.)

Like a lot of people I’m having trouble sleeping at night because the economy might as well be a car without brakes careening down Lombard Street, but I hope there will be a sliver of silver lining coming from it. Perhaps the gifts of the upcoming giving season, thinned of expensive consoles, handhelds, and modules by shrinking household budgets, will be rounded out with classics of creative play. I’m not suggesting we give our kith and kin boxes and sticks. But books, musical instruments and magic tricks (the staples of my youth); leather kits, paint boxes and chemistry sets; scrapbooks, cameras, and journals; footballs, bikes and skateboards; Scrabble games, sewing machines, and puppet theaters. Sounds quaint doesn’t it? Perhaps, but the most creative people I know recall how such simple things became broad wheels to steer the great ships of their imaginations.

In an era when innovation is considered the primary currency of business I don’t see this as nostalgia. Imaginative play will always be relevant. Simple things remain great catalysts for creativity. I don’t want my future and younger colleagues to come to work showing off the mastery of a particular skill so much as I want them to know how to do great things with very little, how to imagine something designed for one use being yoked for another chore entirely, how to explore the possibility of an idea.

It’s not a bad way to approach leisure time either.

My good friend Jerry recently emailed me about his weekend, one spent largely outside with his beautiful children, Hope and Gianni. While they played Jerry found a small tree limb on the ground. It had a natural crook in it that suggested something functional. So there in his Midwestern, middle class, 21st century suburban backyard, Jerry whittled a walking stick.

“Not a bad Saturday,” he wrote.

What were the “sticks” of your youth? I’d like to hear your comments about creative play and how it affected you.

© 2008 John Armato
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