Bringing Ideas to Life

President John F. Kennedy once said, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”

Michael Davis is a young man familiar with the power of ideas. “Ideas, or images,” he says, “just come to me. The idea may not have much shape to it initially, but I develop it over time and create more from it.”  Perhaps this is why Michael’s time at AFA has agreed with him.  “I enjoy the education because the classes are geared towards understanding the ideas.  The questions make you think, and you can’t just spit back information.”  Movies, soccer, and friends all form important parts of Michael’s life, but it is the pictures in his mind that dominate his passions.

It is because we are made in the image of the Creator that we ourselves can create.  Michael describes how the ideas that arise in his mind lead to the formation of whole worlds:   “I have these images or pictures in my head, which then turn into characters.  The characters I create, I feel, are the ideas coming alive.”  Michael enjoys reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy and admits that some of his ideas arise from books, but, at other times, he says, “I just think about things, and I have a character.  The character becomes a story, which then gets a context of other creatures and worlds.”

Ideas, however, are not just the lifeblood of writers. They fuel every act of human creation, not just in the arts, but also in the sciences. After graduation, Michael plans to pursue biomedical engineering or computer science, in tandem with an ROTC scholarship.  While some might be surprised to see a ‘creative’ person turn to a technical field, for Michael there is no conflict.  “I have grand plans in my head, and I want to try to make those plans real,” he says.  “Building things and computers both give me a chance to do that.”  There is more than one way to create.  “Engineering, like drawing, is a way to bring ideas to life.”