Experiment: Diorama

There's a large subset of people I know who've had a terrible time giving up their childhood. They're paralyzed at the thought of having full time "adult" jobs. Responsibility. See adulthood as some lesser, unfun land of death and debt and taxes. Not seeing the liberty in it all. Call me naive, but I love the liberty of adulthood. I love that I can still enjoy the things I did when I was young, and in addition I can afford to do things that are even more fun, like go to Dave & Busters. HAHHAH. I love that joke.

You can still make dioramas. Dioramas never get old. Still total fun. And so empowering to make a miniature world. The characters are bound by your laws, your blueprints, your spatial dimensions. Your mistakes. Even those turn into something cool in the end. (Did you see petite Philippe Petit?) Makes you kind of realize how cool it's going to be to create other things some day, like universes. Universes where there are no Dave & Busters and no DMVs and no Lady Gaga.

It's Sunday. I'm remembering Deiter Uchtdorf's take on creativity and spirituality. He says it better than I can. Or at least he sounds cooler saying it.

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty.

You might say, “I’m not the creative type." If that is how you feel, think again, and remember that you are spirit children of the most creative Being in the universe.

Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination.

But to what end were we created? We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fullness of joy. Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things.

What you create doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t let fear of failure discourage you. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you—whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside.

The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come. Trust and rely on the Spirit. As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you.

The God I believe in is unbelievably creative. The master painter and the master scientist. And I'm betting He loves dioramas.