Sci Fi vs Art

As many of you know, I am a bit of a Star Trek fan. Not a die-hard Trekkie, but I love my Trek. Now, in case you haven't guessed, this is not a real estate related post. Sometimes I have to think of other things. : ) Therefore, I was watching Star Trek: Next Generation tonight on Tivo and I started to think about the impact of Star Trek.

First of all, I LOVED the new Star Trek movie. Really fun. Star Trek is always fun! But there is a bigger reason (more than fun) for Star Trek to have been a constant in my life since I was a small child. I think it's creativity. I am the product of a "creative" education. I went to film school. Not just anywhere. I went to USC, the best film school in the country. (Maybe the world, but students in Prague would argue that.) Schools today put so much effort into teaching science and math, and I think that's great, but they also need to develop the creative side of the brain. "Creative" progams in schools are being slashed or eliminated and I think that's a tragedy. Ask any die-hard Star Trek science geek what inspires him or her and he/she will say the "creative science side." The transporter beam, Vulcans, warp drive, the food replicator... All products of a creative mind. Our own President, as the story goes, looked at his wife's jewel encrusted belt and called the jewels dilithium crystals.

I am not stating anything profound here. Just remembering that it often takes someone thinking REALLY, REALLY far outside of the box to find something truly interesting and challenging that encourages us to meet those challenges. If we don't encourage creative thinking then how can we expect the science to catch up? Creative thinkers set goals for science. These thinkers don't care about boundaries, sometimes to their detriment and we need them. The creative, pie-in-the-sky ideas makes us aim higher.

Now I need to apply my creative thinking to real estate...