First thoughts on this year’s common read, ‘How to Fly a Horse’
By Melinda Franke
In How to Fly a Horse, Kevin Ashton helps the reader further understand creation by debunking its myth and showing us its ordinariness. From this work, I learned that it does not take a special kind of person to create things or even become successful in doing so. If I were to suggest this book to someone, it would be for learning more about oneself. While reading this book, I read stories of many different scientist, artist, and even a child who changed the way the world looked at a specific object or their specific field of work. In reading these stories and understanding the way these well-known scientists came to be, I noticed the similarities in their stories and my own life, which made me realize the possibilities I have as an ordinary creator at an extraordinary university.
There has been a longstanding myth of creation, which says that things are created in an epiphany sort of moment, or that an idea comes to someone in the middle of the night in the form of a dream. Although it may seem this way in movies or books for the sake of time, there are usually steps taken to get to the best possible outcome of said creation. Ashton says in terms of creating, it is “taking steps, not making leaps”. The Wright brothers best embody this idea. They created their first plane and realized that it had flaws, so they created a second version and saw that that had a different problem and they continued this until it was right. If you look at a timeline of the Wright brother’s aircrafts, each newer version has a slightly different alteration to it. Such changes indicate that they took a different problem in each version of their aircraft and found a new solution. Seeing this progression of their creation made taught me that the process of creating can be a long one, but it is a process of steps and not of a leap to immediate success.
Ashton refers to creative thinking as “a special kind of problem-solving”. Creative thinking is common among humans, so much so that we have creative thoughts daily without consciously knowing it. Anyone can think creatively. You can be ordinary and still create remarkable things.
This novel taught me that anyone can create and be good at it. I was introduced to the idea of having a “beginner’s mind”, which means not letting my past experiences limit my possibilities, because at a school like this, the possibilities are quite vast. I hope this novel can help those that are afraid to be extraordinary to have a beginner’s mind and allow themselves to think creatively.
