Ever wonder what happens to the discarded creative ideas, dropped inspiration or abandoned projects after they slip from our minds? These tiny fragments of potential will clatter to the ground to become nourishment for the frightful Slurpawow.
The sight of one of these scavengers scurrying through your craft drawer, behind half-painted canvasses, beneath writing desks can cause alarm. It's rat-like body, coupled with ferocious-looking skull takes some getting used to. It is almost as if this monster is, itself, created through mashing parts of odd ideas together. It certainly lives to embody the idea of 'recycling' lost inspiration.
I have a particular infestation of these monsters often as my mind tends to wander from task to task. At first, I tried to keep them out. But, no matter how hard I tried they would always find a way inside as they are attracted to forgotten projects. They rummaged through my notebooks, scoured through my crafting room sniffing at my failed bid to become an origami master and snuffled up other projects I dreamed of starting but never did.
At first, their presence reminded me of everything all that I had neglected. After watching them scrounge around for some time I noticed a strange vapour drifting from their heads and spreading around them as they moved. Suddenly, the fragments began to swirl. They connected, rearranged themselves, and revealed possibilities and options that I had never noticed before.
Suddenly I was awash with possibility and realised I could use what I had learned, or built from one failed project to help restart and finish another. It was not long before these Eureka! moments left me feeling positive with newfound potential.
That was when I realised the Slurpawow was not a scavenger at all. It was a recycler for lost ideas. It would eat up the scraps but reinject the useful parts back out into the world. This act could transform failure, delay and disappointment into valuable lessons.
What I had dismissed as wasted time or missed opportunity became the beginning of something new and I learned the never mourn the forgotten ideas as when we revisit what we abandoned, but focus on what we learned doing so, we may discover not failure, but the raw material for a brighter, more imaginative future.