Creativity is the magic of seeing the world from a different point of view. Where do ideas come from? Is it the same for every person? According to one expert (Schroeder in “Peanuts”), Beethoven could only compose if he had the smell of sour apples in the room.

Over the years, I’ve found that I’m at my most creative when I first awake. The mind is a blank slate at that point. This morning, my first thought upon getting out of bed was, “How come the Munsters never killed anybody?”

I considered it while brushing my teeth. Grandpa and Lilly were vampires. (Despite Hollywood, traditional eastern European folklore allows vampires to come out during the day, in the sunlight.) Herman was Frankenstein’s monster. Eddie, the son of Lilly and Herman was a werewolf. (How did that happen? Maybe the milkman or the mailman was a werewolf, too.)

The typical “ Munster” gag had Marilyn’s date walking her up to the front door, Herman opening the door with that dumb look on his face, and the date’s hair standing on end and the date running away.

Makes no sense. Marilyn should invite her date in for a “nightcap.” Lilly, Grandpa, and Eddie can then fall upon him and have dinner. Marilyn’s date would scream in agony, while Herman would be laughing his stock laugh: “Bwah-huh-huh!” Grandpa could make some tired joke about, “having to eat take-out again.”

Many people I speak to feel that they’re “not that creative” and treat artists and writers as magicians in touch with some netherworld. They underestimate themselves. Anybody can be creative, if the circumstances dictate. Some of my students – ones who would struggle for days to come up with original graphic design ideas - suffered no such creative block when it came to making excuses. “You forgot to remind me!” was a favorite of mine for a long time.

The best excuses – like the best ideas – are simple. I had one student give me a shaggy dog story: “I was absent yesterday because my best friend, who doesn’t have any family, is in intensive care, and I’m like a brother to him, and I had to stay with him ‘cause he had no one else, and he was all alone and . . .” This went on for ten minutes.

Compare that with this one-sentence excuse: “My dog gave me poison ivy!” Beautiful! Both excuses, by the way, were true. The “dog” excuse was just as full of pathos as the “intensive care” one, only more expertly delivered.

The author of the “dog” one also came up with my all-time favorite. He was supposed to shoot a video in his neighborhood. At one point, I asked him why he hadn’t started filming yet.

“The cops arrested my cast!”

There’s a book out now, called, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s about making snap judgments and instant decisions. I haven’t read it, but I suspect that the author would have been well-served to have interviewed a fellow I used to work with named Joe. Joe wasn’t a creative type; he was an account executive for our graphics department in a large telecommunications company. He took in assignments and managed the work flow.

He was a gregarious middle-aged ex-Brooklynite with a gravelly voice and a Brooklyn way of phrasing things. Asked where he was going on his vacation, he answered, “South of the yard and north of the yard.” Of course with his accent it came out like this: “Sout’ a’ da yahd, an’ nawt a’ da yahd.”

Early in his career with AT&T, all the telephone operators went out on strike and Joe, along with many others in middle management, had to man the switchboards. He had one customer in a phone booth who owed fifty-five cents on a call, but refused to pay up.

Joe argued with the fellow, but there was no way the guy was going to pay. Finally, Joe said, “I’ve got a button here on my switchboard! If you don’t insert the fifty-five cents right now, I’m going to push the button and blow up your phone booth!” The man paid.

Sometimes, creativity hits on the spur of the moment. Years ago, I saw a recruiting poster on the side of a bus stop, with their old slogan, “The Marine Corps builds men!” Written underneath in lipstick was, “Build me one!”

Creativity should never be used for evil purposes. In the 1970’s, there was the case of Fred. Fred was the brother of our parish priest, Fr. James, who told me this story.

Fred took his fiancé to meet his parents for the first time, at their home. On the drive over, he told her, “My parents are hard of hearing, so you’ll have to raise your voice when you talk to them. Of course, they’re going to talk loudly also, because they are hard of hearing.”

When Fred had pre-arranged the meeting, he told his parents, “My fiancé is hard of hearing, so you’ll have to raise your voice when you talk to her. Of course, she’s going to talk loudly also, because she’s hard of hearing.”

So, this fellow sat in the living room watching his fiancé and parents (all of whom had perfectly fine hearing) shout at each other, while he tried to keep a straight face.

I, of course, do not condone this kind of behavior; I only mention it as a warning.