SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Martin wrote: "And then there’s another contributing factor to self-development and to creativity which I believe with all my heart to be of vital importance at any age, but particularly in childhood and that’s quietness. Space, time to be alone with one’s thoughts. If you have a smart phone and you’re online, you’re never alone. There’s always a text to reply to or the latest tweets or facebook rumours to keep up-to-date with. But all of that leads to us (and our children) having no space in our heads for creative thoughts to pop in. Not time to just sit and ponder. "

This definitely struck a chord with me. I grew up as an only child on a remote ranch in MT pre-everything ... no electricity, no phone and in the wintertime the library books arrived in a box via U.S. mail.

I learned to entertain myself and my companions were the animals and my 'friends' from the books I read.

I certainly take advantage of the Internet now but my major entertainment is still the animals and books. I see very few movies, watch very little TV and have very little in common with most of my neighbors. I've always been quite content inside my own head ... and there are times I really do need to turn everything off and bask in absolute silence.

I do not relate well to young people today ... we have absolutely nothing in common and almost cannot speak the same language.

I think some of it is just personality. Some people (me for example) absolutely love that quiet time to themselves. Others don't. And everyone has something different that speaks to them.

I grew up the youngest of 4 kids but there was quite a big age gap between me and my brothers so I was alone a lot. I spent hours out in the backyard pretending I was an explorer digging in the dirt finding artifacts or new species. And I also read a TON. I was always at the library.

My husband (who is older than me) was an only child. But instead of becoming engrossed in books he turned to movies. He grew up in a bad neighborhood. His Dad didn't want him playing outside alone so he was stuck in the house a lot. Movies played such a large part in his early life that he's a video editor now. The TV is constantly on in our house even if no one is in the room. It drives me crazy but he loves it.

It could be the same for the next generation just with a different medium. Maybe there's kids out there using their imagination on what video game they would like to make. And when they grow up maybe they'll become software designers.

But I think there will always be bookworms.

I keep reading that kids don't play as much, or show as much imagination, but you'd never know it based on my neighborhood. Those kids are out there tearing around all the time, playing games and just noodling around, much like we did back in the day.

A couple of summers ago, I remember laying in my hammock and watching the little boys from next door try and play baseball with just the three of them. They created elaborate rules involving ghost runners and imaginary homers, and it made me laugh to think that they were just a few masks and flags away from a good game of Calvinball.

Then I was immediately sad, because I realized that those little boys were growing up in a world without Calvin and Hobbes, and they had never heard of Calvinball.

For the youngsters:

http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki...

I often wonder how many kids today even know how to play the games we used to play. It was at school, about the only time we had other kids to play with, even though it was a one room school with all eight grades and I think the biggest number of kids that attended was 12.

But how many remember Kick the Can, Red Rover, Red Rover and Anny, Anny, Over?

The Calvinball reference reminded me of something I thought about, watching kids playing once, which is that the whole process of bickering-over-the-rules, making new rules, making rules to patch the loopholes in the rules you've just made, etc. is actually a really valuable form of play on its own. It's about learning how to organize yourselves into some semblance of fairness and to create structure yourselves, rather than merely following rules for some official game, usually with an adult referee/teacher/coach doing all the instruction and enforcement. And like Calvinball, it's a lot more fun, too.

My brother is a video game person. He has tons of imagination but it's all focused somewhere else. He draws and writes his own stories but they are obviously related to favorite video games.

Martin wrote: ",,, as an introvert, I sometimes forget that other people thrive on constant social interaction and 'noise'... sensory input."

Having grown up in a place where you could not hear vehicles on the county road 3 miles away and we rarely had visitors ... no airplane flight paths ... and until I was 10 or 12, no electricity so therefore no radio/TV ... no siblings and rather quiet parents and grandparents ... I have always had a low tolerance to 'noise'.

I have, unfortunately, had the misfortune to have married TV-addicted men ... walk in the door, turn the TV on. I own several sets of earplugs ... and I have never lived in town voluntarily.