I’ll never forget the day I first decided to start playing guitar. My friend sent me an audio clip of a guy from school singing and playing guitar. She said something like, “Check this out. I’m so amazed. He definitely just got 10 times hotter in my book.”

It was about that time I heard John Mayer’s “Continuum.” Needless to say, I was very impressed. I had not only fallen in love with his electric guitar tone, but I had developed a decent musician man crush on Mayer. I knew guitar was something I had to do.

There are days when I’m completely on edge and I can pick up my guitar, write and feel a heck of a lot better. I understand that times are tough, but I think cutting creative arts classes is one of the worst decisions that school systems could possibly make. I’ve seen it in the news and heard people talk about it, and the subject still baffles me.

Have you guys seen the mindless garbage on TV that kids are watching? It’s definitely not “Hey Arnold.” I’m not saying that TV shows need to have a “Full House” Uncle Jessie teaching the girls a valuable lesson in the end, but it at least needs to have a purpose. Toys are the exact same way. I recently visited my parents and found a few of my old action figures (the truth being I had left them out from when I had played with them last week). I decided to introduce my cousin to some of my favorite action figures from my childhood.

With each new Batman toy, he asked the same question, “What does it do?”

My response was always, “Why does it have to do something? You can use your imagination.” I think it’s sad that children have grown to limit themselves creatively. We obviously haven’t been placing the proper emphasis on the creative arts.

For whatever reason, the kid with his head buried in a notebook drawing his heart out is considered the weird kid in elementary school. The girl that stays home practicing piano rather than going out with her friends in middle school is viewed as the social outcast. Here’s the catch, though. Once you enter high school and the years that follow, making a living by being creative is applauded.

The guy that can play guitar gets the chicks in high school. The girl in college makes band T-shirts and paints pictures is automatically awesome. I still don’t understand what happens in the years that lead up to that. If you grow up in the South and don’t play sports, you’re automatically 10 points behind in popularity. There are plenty of kids in school that had life figured out well ahead of me.

These kids realized that there are certain things in life that just really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Sports are one of those. Utilizing your creativity is one of the things that can be beneficial to your entire life. I hope one day the school systems in the U.S. will realize this.