A Desire to Doodle: Essex sunrise/set?

I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever. ~ Beatrix Potter

Are you a compulsive doodler? Or is it a rare and fleeting yen to express yourself through a quick doodle in the margin of the book you’re reading? Either way, I believe that you’re responding to a profoundly human desire to doodle.

The Human Desire to Doodle

Nearly as far back in time as we can probe, our primitive forbears expressed their desire to doodle on the walls of their caves or along cliffy bluffs during seasonal migration or while returning from a hunt. Today youngsters still unable to crawl respond to that same primal desire to doodle. Sometimes when and where we don’t want them to! In fact, I think this need to interpret ideas and stories and reminders and emotions through simple, extemporaneous drawings may be one of the mist intrinsic, defining characteristics of humans.

Humanity’s desire to doodle is fundamental. And it is useful, potentially constructive and often thoroughly enjoyable.

And yet teachers and parents and peers and employers slowly train us away from doodling despite its many merits. We are weened of the desire to doodle from an early age despite the undeniably fact that it is often very effective means of processing and communicating ideas.

Perhaps this is a grave mistake. Perhaps we lose something vital when we cease to doodle. And there’s only one way to find out for sure. So I say, try it out. Give in to the desire to doodle! And let us know how it turns out…

Related articles

• Why You Should Doodle More (fastcodesign.com)
• Food for Thought Friday: Do You Get Mad at Kids Doodling? (dasdivy.wordpress.com)
• Mike Lowery: Master Doodler and Illustrator (virtualdavis.com)