“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
— American author Kurt Vonnegut
When I was a terrified, inexperienced mother of a squirmy newborn all those years ago, I was certain I was going to drop my infant as I gave him his daily soap-down. Then, a vivid inspiration came to me in my sleepless haze: a baby-washing machine. I pictured a plastic freestanding papoose equipped with gentle water jets and mild detergents. Insert kid here, leaving nothing but face exposed, and — voila! Out comes a fresh, pink, cleansed and perfect bundle.
I never invented the contraption, of course. Early motherhood makes other demands on you that leave you emptied and depleted.
But the idea recurred recently as I was watching a friend’s daughter trying to cope with her own baby. Maybe now, I thought. Maybe now. For about 10 minutes, visions of Dragons’ Den dollars coursed through my head. Then I went on to other pursuits.
Too bad. The concept has some merit, so what stops me from following up? Age? Fear of jumping off a cliff and breaking old bones?
What else could it be? In our salad years, after all, ours was a generation of intrepid inventors. Cellphones, calculators and personal computers all came into their own when we were young adults.
So did the artificial heart, email and leaf blowers. We were quick to identify needs and ingenious enough to fill them. We were cocky and too naïve to assume anything but the best when we took on a challenge.
Apparently, though, it’s not too late for me or anyone else. There are no similar figures available for Canada, but it turns out that in the U.S., about 60 per cent of the membership of the United Inventors Association of America (UIAA) is age 50 or older. Plus, they’re the ones who enjoy the most success with their inventions. Among them is octogenarian George Weiss, who hit it big with his word game Dabble after 45 years of trying and 80 failed inventions.
“Older adults have more experience, plus the insight and persistence to get a product to market,” suggested Jeffrey Dobkin, president of the UIAA’s Philadelphia chapter.
Another explanation comes from William H. Thomas, an American doctor who has studied aging and creativity. “[I]n our mid-50s,” he writes, “we enter [a] liberation phase, which continues … throughout our 60s and as we move into our 70s. It is, in effect, characterized by friendly metaphorical inner voices saying to us, ‘If not now, when? Why not? What can they do to me?’ These voices give us a new level of comfort, confidence, and courage to try different approaches in exploring new areas of endeavour, problem solving and tapping into our limitless inventive potential.
The liberation phase underlies what many researchers have called the growth of practical intelligence and pragmatic creativity with aging.
We think of the absent-minded inventor, working away in the wee hours in a garage or basement as a cliché and an anachronism. Surely, we tend to believe, all novel products nowadays require teams of engineers labouring in obscurity for multinationals.
Well, say what you will about the Harper government’s attitude toward established science. But his team is trying to revive the concept of the lone genius in a messy workshop. Recently, Industry Canada commissioned Ekos Research Associates Inc., to learn how many such Canadians there are.
The Ekos report, delivered in March, found that nearly 13 per cent of us fit the mould of the independent creator with a brainstorm. They’re the ones who have successfully developed new products or improved on old ones within the past three years. The study further suggests that this is a pool of talent worth tapping if Canada is to remain competitive in a world that relies on ever more advancing R&D.
True, the report also found that most of these innovators are young men with degrees in science or technical disciplines.
But that shouldn’t stop the rest of us. Let’s give the whippersnappers a run for their money. A tool, a workshop, a plan.
But first, let our imaginations soar.
Follow Rosa Harris on Twitter: @rharrisa
