Can you use that detail to imagine a story? Who is the dollmaker who made the doll without the mouth? Why didn't they include a mouth? What games might the girl play with a doll without a mouth?
Congrats, you've just sharpened your intuition, which is your ability to identify emerging possibilities.
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Certain works of art make you feel like your wildest dreams could come true.
One example is I Love Lucy.
I Love Lucy uses a narrative invention, the Comic Wink, that gently suggests hopeful possibilities — a world where women hold jobs they want to do, in which they express their desires, in which inter-ethnic marriages are accepted, everyday occurrences, etc. — by placing them within an insistently playful framework.
The combo of new norms and playfulness reassures your brain that there's no reason to worry, nothing is actually changing. It's all for fun.
And in the case of Lucy, the world becomes more open to the idea of a woman running a major —the major— television studio of the day.
The Comic Wink is a first step in making your brain believe that your dreams can come true.
So you get better at identifying what you feel and why.
So we have a reference library of literary works to help you alleviate hard feelings when they hit and to flourish by building up stores of positive emotions.
You can learn more about the narrative techniques that open your mind to big dreams coming true in chapter 24 of Wonderworks.
03. Commonsense
How to Raise Generations of Readers.
You're the son of a teacher and someone who believes deep in your bones that reading, learning, and growing are what's most important in life.
You're also a young actor who recently shot to world-wide fame in a dramatic role at age 19.
You're offered a new, unusual role. Hosting a children's program focused on reading: an almost antiquated premise in the days of fast-moving Saturday morning cartoons.
Accepting undoubtedly puts you in a category far removed from the one you've been working toward…and the show could be an utter flop.
If you chose Option C, you have the kind of commonsense that could make you as beloved as LeVar Burton.
Commonsense is your ability to match the newness of your plan to the newness of your environment.
It was only to outsiders that Burton's choice to front the PBS show — and testify before congress for more funding— seemed an unusual one. It squared entirely with his beliefs in a world in which maybe technologies had changed, but the gift of reading remained the same: kids love to read and reading improves children's lives.
Reading Rainbow wasn't a departure for the Roots star, it was his next chance to shine.
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