Let Your Imagination Breathe

The Morning Show is a blog companion to the Podcast Audio

There's nothing quite like the tangents a 9 year old boy will take.  I was sitting in my guitar teaching chair last night, trying to get the little fellow interested in not only holding his guitar fairly upright, but to also play a few notes, and have them sound decent.  It's literally and figuratively a balancing act - these little fellows are wiggly, and that's OK! I don't remember exactly what the cue word was, but probably something like "try it again" or "practice", and BAM, he was off on a wonderful tangent.  It started with a robot.  "We could ask him to make us hot chocolate!  And he'd be back in like five seconds with it, and it would be the best hot chocolate ever."  "This is superior hot chocolate in every way" I intoned in my best robot voice.  "And then I'd ask him to make a fleet of robots.  But then I'd let him rest."  "I need a nap now."  "But you've only been working for fifteen seconds."  "But it was very hard work."  "And he'd put something in the hot chocolate that could make us FLY!  And then we'd go to SPACE!....but then we'd have to come back to Earth, because we couldn't breathe."

  I felt it my job to point out the obvious flaw in his logic.  "But, I think if he could make magic hot chocolate and get us to space - he could figure out a way we could breathe."

  Why do we do that?  Why do we build robots that make us magical hot chocolate, and then worry about breathing in space?  It's got me thinking about self-imposed limits.  Sometimes kids say the darndest things...