The Creative Contrarian

Wise Fool Strategy # 5Keep Playing with It

“I tell you, we are on earth to play around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, American Novelist

Let's take a look at seven examples of “wordplay,” one each, respectively, from a novelist, an advertising copywriter, a scribe, a librarian, a priest, a codemaker, and a physicist. All highlight different aspects of play.

Wordplay #1: Irish writer James Joyce once mused:

Gee each owe tea eye “smells” fish.

What he was saying was that the letters “G,” “H,” “O,” “T,” and “I” spell the word “fish.” How is this so? If you pronounce “GH” as it is in “rough,” “O” as it is in “women,” and “TI” as in “motion,” it follows that “GHOTI” must be pronounced “fish.” Is this just a goofy bit of frivolity? Perhaps. But the kind of playful thinking underlying it is the same kind that creates breakthroughs in subatomic particle theory, DNA research, and fun-to-use toys.

Wise Fools believe that play is an important lubricant of the creative process. When they're stuck on a problem, nothing pleases them more than an opportunity to play with it. For example, I have asked many people (actually, millions) when they get their ideas. The answers I've received can be broken down into two groups. The first is “necessity,” and it is highlighted by responses such as: “When I'm faced with a problem”; “When things break, and I have to fix ...