Innovation

Birthday parties are so much fun, especially when there are creative folks around to make it special.

Here's Grandma encouraging the kids to play a game that involves dropping clothespins into jars on the ground--perfect for the two- to three-year-old age group. To do so, they need to stand on chairs and lean over the back of the chairs. Note that this is not the use for which chairs are invented. In fact parents all over the world tell their children on a regular basis not to stand on  chairs and never to lean over the backs. We might also observe that the designers of the clothespin and the glass jar didn't have kids' party games in mind.

In the foreground is Mom, holding up a laptop computer so that Dad--who's overseas right now--can be part of the action. Laptops were made to be mobile, but not to serve as hand-held recording devices. But they do double-duty if necessary.

I love this example of how we are always putting things to unintended uses. In the name of creativity we'll stretch tools and devices beyond the range of their original purposes. And thereby we sometimes invent or conceive things we didn't know we needed.

This may not be unique to humans, however. Notice the dachshund using a food supplier as a source of shade.

~ emrys