Baker and Smith reckon that daydreaming is a bit underrated on the scale of life’s curriculum.
Life seems to start off with us thinking anything is possible before options inevitably narrow and we accept our lot. Freewheeling attitudes in our youth are often a thin veneer for a conservatism ready to take over at ‘a certain age’. One time radical uni-types fall into middle age and demand their cherubs knuckle down or be damned. On the other hand, creativity has had pretty good press in recent years and people are seeing it as one important ingredient for the kit bag you take into the big wide world.
I have had conversations with well meaning parents that list a child’s schedule; maths tutoring, violin lessons, language class, ballet, after school care. ‘I wish they were a bit more creative’ is an occasional admission. Just where you squeeze that in to such a schedule though is the conundrum. Head in the cloud equals free play. Daydreaming can’t be hothoused, and you can’t study it in accelerated units.
Baker Smith has benefitted from staring into the big blue sky, and probably more so than from trying to memorise the table of elements. Daydreaming has solved many of our problems and created useful ideas to incorporate into life. I’m not saying we drift about in a perpetual cumulonimbus bliss reinventing life as we know it, but it’s worth trying sometimes.
Our unofficial list to the benefits of daydreaming:
1. Connecting ideas that may not normally belong together
2. Calm the mind
3. Solve problems
4. Escape
5. Thoughts can become things to benefit the future
6. Cure for boredom (not a result of it)
7. No age barriers
8. Invent new worlds
9. Entertain yourself
10. It’s not cost prohibitive
bakersmith 