Thinking outside the box may be tough if it isn’t natural for someone, like an individual used to a defined professional or repetitive environment for a long time.
Like my mother, who was a nutritionist. She studied the latest theories in her college and taught my sister and I how important it was to choose what we ate.
For her, breakfast was crucial. Through my childhood, we had a picture-perfect breakfast every morning. This habit literally ingrained in my bones and muscles.
When I was an office worker, I had to leave every day at six-thirty to catch the morning sales meetings; therefore, I woke up at five-thirty and had breakfast around six. I had never skipped breakfast as my mother had taught me.
Then I started having problems: sudden stomachaches, bad digestion, and my atopic dermatitis (eczema) became worse and worse. It took me a while to figure out why I was becoming sick. I had never imagined that my breakfast caused these unwelcome troubles.
A 15 to 18-hour fast was introduced by my doctors. It basically skipped a breakfast to support and recover my healthy digestion system.
When I told my mother about this treatment she grew upset. But I decided to stick with the fasts to see if they could improve my health. If they didn’t work, I would simply go back to having a daily breakfast.
A 15 to 18-hour fast worked for me well. I still occasionally have breakfast together with my family and friends, but the majority of the time, I do not eat 15 to 18 hours after dinner. My mother is a pro-breakfast nutritionist, but this is her belief and it works for her health. My body is different and requires a different regimen.
This experience is very similar to my graphic poetry project. When I started creating graphic poems, feedback was generally of one of two divided opinions:
“I love what you do. It is so inspiring. I will try this.”
“Your graphic poems are not poetry. They should not be considered poems.”
These represent their preferences and how they define art and poetry, and come from their experiences and beliefs. To accept or reject graphic poetry is totally up to them. However, I strongly believe that creating graphic poems, if nothing else, is beneficial to one’s own editing skills. It even has the potential to inspire different ways to approach writing poems or observing one’s own surroundings.
(You may enjoy reading my past articles about How Graphic Poetry Helps Us Progress the Story Telling Technique and the Creative Process of Its Own Editing)
To be continued…