Scribbles to create

Since I have memory I have always had a tendency to draw while talking on the phone, when I'm bored or in meetings. In college I did it a lot, I filled out sheets, notebooks, whatever it was while I listened to the classes. My closest companions liked it, and even lent me their notebooks so I could make them personalized scribbles and keep them as a souvenir. I was happy, it was great to have a new opportunity to continue creating.

Normally they were simple, figurative, abstract drawings, and sometimes with little meaning. Mostly unconscious while my attention was focused on something else, except when I was really bored I took deliberate paper and pencil to distract myself a little and let my imagination fly.

This was not always good, I tell you ...

"It's inappropriate"

When I started working, I assumed new responsibilities and lived different experiences than I had lived before, however, my habit of scribbling was quite frequent. Usually, they appeared at team meetings, for me it was normal and, sometimes, I did not even realize what I was doing, my co-workers if they noticed.

We all paid attention, the only difference was that I drew while doing it, until one day they approached me and told me in the way of advice-scolding that I did not do it anymore, that it was inappropriate, that it looked very bad and gave the appearance I was not interested in what I was listening to, which was not true because paradoxically I knew exactly what they were talking about and even participated and could even summarize if necessary.

But of course ... How could I explain that this was not a lack of attention, but a way to calm my restless mind?

Hey! no more drawings

This happened to me again and again until I became aware of my actions and did not re-draw in meetings for "respect" to my interlocutor. And the few times I had a pencil in my hand and a piece of paper and drew the first line, my co-workers looked at me and said something like "Hey, do not do it, remember what we talked about," or “Leave the pencil that the boss is not going to like".

Obviously they did it for my own good, because it really could be misinterpreted.

Incomprehension

Anyway, nobody understood me and I really felt a little misunderstood, and I even thought at a moment that maybe they were right. Until one day, doing a course online (excellent by the way) called Creative Apprentice, I could see that I was right. Scribbling and paying attention are two things that can be combined without one affecting the other.

Discovery. Yeah!

Well, it turns out that there is a complete theory about the importance of scribbling to create, and even if it does not seem like it, scribbling is part of a creative process and can be translated as a very particular way of processing the information that was heard.

So it's not disinterest, it's not distraction, it's not being on the moon while others are talking, it's just a different way of listening, of paying attention; it is a means of expression that makes it possible to assimilate information more widely. And speaking in terms of creativity, scribbling is the beginning of any idea, a manifestation of thought, it is an art.

My opinion

For me to do these scribbles has always generated a sense of well-being, and that I've never been very bold with the subject of the drawings (I was not very interested in being a cartoonist). But now every time I do them, I enjoy them more, because I know that my brain is more active than ever, and that from there it will surely generate very good and creative things.