Like many, then and now, as a boy I would often get bored. We just had a couple of acres of woods, but everyone else did as well. Few friends lived near me, as a result. Connecting with some friends involved a minor odyssey. I would have to travel through the woods, make my way around wetlands, and stay out of sight landowners.

It was a creative endeavor to just get to a friend's house, and though you left home in search of friends to stem your boredom, matters didn't change once you connected. The ritual began with one person saying, "What'll we do now?" The response, "Dunno, wha' d'you think we should do?" And like a faithful amen, "Dunno."

Since video games weren't a hot item at the time, we weren't allowed to have someone else be creative for us. We had to do it to ourselves, and the woods was where it happened. Although nature carried a certain degree of entertainment in and of itself, it was only the controls and not the game itself. It was like being handed a joystick and then forming the game in and through our own brains. Fantasy, play and fun were self-made endeavors, never handed to us. We made guns out of sticks, forts out of trees and holes became bunkers. Fantasy world was not a negative word. It was a place we created in our minds and then enacted in our surroundings.

Is this childhood art of creating a world or an adventure nearly gone? The common cry of many is, "I'm bored" or "This is no fun." And then, there are two options. We as adults may assume responsibility for making it more fun for them. Let’s keep them happy! Or, there is the option of a creative, fantasy world made by someone else that can be turned on.

The world of self-made fantasy, creativity and play is losing ground. It's a skill we all need like walking. It's as if a whole generation of people are saying, "I can't walk" and we carry them, and they never learn to do it on their own.

It's a deep hole we have dug. Entering into a world where youth today and upcoming generations gain a greater and greater sense of personal creativity, a ceasing of that which entertains from the outside would need to occur. Kids would need to get bored and not have any option to have the boredom taken from them in any way other than what they can do for themselves. They would need to reach deep within and pull out an intuitive sense to create, but it has been neatly and nearly locked away.