The Number 23 and My Creativity
Hello Creative Allies,
There’s a memory that always lingers in the back of my mind.
It’s one of those stories that sounds small at first, but the more I revisit it, the more I see its lasting impression on me.
It was summer daycare in elementary school, and my teacher gave each of us a page with a number on it. Our task was simple: turn that number into something creative, something new.
I was handed the number 23, and while the others finished their masterpieces, I just sat and stared at mine. To a little kid, 23 was big. Almost daunting. I couldn’t see beyond the strange curves.
I turned the page in every direction, but all I saw was a giant 2 and 3. I remember sitting there, watching others fill their pages, unsure of what to make of my 23. I felt hopeless.
And then an idea clicked.
I would draw the world’s biggest number, towering high on a hill, with crowds of people coming from all around to see it. To me, it was grand. It was a spectacle, something worth imagining. I felt the buzz of excitement as I completed my picture.
But my teacher’s response was not what I expected.
She looked at it, and a frown crept across her face. “That’s not right,” she said. My idea of the biggest number in the world, sitting high and proud, somehow wasn’t “right.”
In that moment, I felt my excitement shrink back. I couldn’t understand why my imagination had missed the mark, or why “creative” had rules that I hadn’t known about.
Even now, that moment lingers. It’s not just about a number or a hill—it’s about the limits we put on creativity, even with the youngest among us.
In that moment, I learned that not everyone saw the same worth in my imagination that I did.
And while I grew past it, the experience left a mark. It’s been a reminder that sometimes, creativity doesn’t fit the mold others set for it. Sometimes, it stands tall on a hill, unapologetically big, drawing its own crowd.
For anyone who’s ever felt their creativity questioned or “not right,” here’s what I know now: our imagination’s worth isn’t defined by someone else’s standards.
Sometimes the world needs a giant 23 on a hill, even if no one else gets it.
So, let’s give ourselves and others the freedom to dream without borders—to reclaim the worth of our own ideas, even when they don’t fit the picture someone else had in mind.
A shoutout to Midjourney for a representation of my drawing.
The image was created by Midjourney using the following prompt: A kid’s hand-drawn picture with black pen on white paper. It is a giant 23 on a hill as if it is an attraction. People are gathered around looking at it.
