The Divergent Fangirl
October 16, 2014 § 1 Comment
Divergent. It’s more than just a B-list Young Adult series. It’s a way of being.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the test where they give a paperclip to a kindergartener and an adult. When you ask the kindergartener how many different things you can do with the paperclip, they can generate hundreds of answers. When you ask the adult, they struggle to think of more than 5.
At some point in our educational history we rolled over and just started accepting what we were taught. We flipped to the back of the book for the answer rather than generating our own solutions. And when it comes to fangirling, many of us treat it the same way.
So let’s have a test, shall we? Suppose I hand you this screencap.
What do you do with a screencap? Maybe you reblog it, or maybe you make it your desktop background. Maybe you cry about it. That’s what you do with it right? Right?
What if I saw this screencap as a visual metaphor for me being torn between the negative and the BAMFy voice inside my head? I might list my negative thoughts and counter them with positive ones.
Or maybe I see a woman who’s put together and I pick my clothes out for work tomorrow, so I’m not rapidly hobo-garbing myself when I run out the door. CBS might own the rights to the cap, but I own the rights to my imagination and what it can do for me.
If we could transport our brains back to our kindergarten level of curiosity, and see a television episode or a BAMF quote or a gif like true divergent thinkers, like true divergent fangirls, there is literally no end to the possibilities.
This week I want to encourage you to be creative. Make your fangirl creys work for you. Sit down, pen to paper, and generate crazy, creative methods to connect your fangirl passions to your dreams.
To learn more about divergent thinking, you can listen to creativity expert Ken Robinson’s TED talk on divergent thinking.
Fangirl Therapy 
Great read thannks