Ever start a fire with flint and steel?

Small spark on some fine dry kindling …coax it, nurture it…shield it…feed it…give it room to breathe…

One wrong move and you can put it out before it gets going…even someone getting too close and accidentally breathing on it can put it out…or a pile of leaves can smother it.

That small spark can turn a small flame just for a lesson at Boy Scout camp or even the stone circled campfire for cooking and late night ghost stories…sometime even a powerful raging forest fire.

Sparks of creativity are like the tiny dots of fire that leap from flint and steel.

Everybody has them.

Next time, instead of letting life, work, hierarchy, bullies or lizard brain fear get in the way…take that spark and coax it, nurture it, shield it, feed it, give it room to breathe and keep the wet blankets off of it.

Whether it’s your spark or someone else’s, once it catches…and grows…the powerful ranging creativity “fire” can spread and change the world…or at least the face of gaming.

Trust the idea. I’ve seen it happen..whether it was on Nox, C&C: Generals, C&C: Red Alert 2, FarmVille or Treasure Isle.

Question is, what have you done with your sparks today?

“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly…who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

If you’d like to read the speech in it’s entirety, here’s a link: www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html.