I’ve heard it called a miracle, a life-saver, a game-changer…today, I used dry shampoo for the first time. I mean, is there no end to the wonders of our world, Chickens? Consider me woke.

But we just never know, do we, what event – what disregarded detail of our day – may come back around, in some way, to stay.

Speaking of game-changing events, we’ve got one lined up for you tomorrow. But first…a word about transformative experiences↓

Man has been creating since prehistoric times…lest you buy into the fallacy that art is a feminine domain. If Captain Cave Man was compelled by instinct to etch gods and beasts on cave walls…don’t think for a minute that art isn’t in our collective, unisexual blood.

ANNNDDD…lest you think we are absent art here at Northern…je vous prie de différer, mon ami artiste! Any job can become a career when performed with artistry. Not to mention the actual craft involved in welding, cooking, manufacturing…

The employment of art and creativity in work and life has been a game-changer for me and science now asserts it is, indeed, a life-saver for many:

In 2010, a review of existing literature on the benefits of the arts by Stuckey and Noble considered more than 100 studies, concluding that creative expression has a powerful impact on health and well-being … Most of these studies concur that participation and/or engagement in the arts have a variety of outcomes including a decrease in depressive symptoms, an increase in positive emotions, reduction in stress responses, and, in some cases, even improvements in immune system functioning…

As of 2015, additional studies indicate that creative self-expression and exposure to the arts have wide-ranging effects…not only cognitive and psychosocial health but also physical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, various forms of dementia and cancer. One of the most compelling studies was recently conducted by the Mayo Clinic and proposed that people who engage in art activities in middle and old age may delay cognitive decline in very old age.

*Psychology Today, 2015

There you have it, Chickens. Art and creativity are not elitist endeavors…rise up with me, Chickens, I will gladly lead the populist charge to bring art back to the people, to its roots, to the streets, alleys, bars, and basements where it has so often flourished…

So…I know you totally stopped reading after dry shampoo…but the point (finally) of my uprising is to say, take time tomorrow to release your inner cave (wo)man:

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares

about doing it right or better.

~John Updike