The Scamper Method Applied to Human Interaction:

« Scamper-ing » in our personality and in our network
An analysis in character and personality design

Human being, considered as a design, as a living conception with an intelligence redefines and reprograms all his attributes in order to survive. Though it may seem useless to reduce the human being to an object; it follows the same SCAMPER method to overcome « daily problems » . It is a fact that if you can not change the situation nor the material that you're facing with in any given problem, the human tends to take himself as an object and in a way redesigns himself using the SCAMPER method.

It is surely doubtful if such a subject makes part of the common idea of design but it is rather important to underline that the character design is surely a method used by professional writers such as scenarists, novelists or non-professional ones like bloggers. Other than that in most of the cartoon related work the main personality has to be « characterized » in an intelligent way. The way we craft those imaginary personalities is strongly related to our own reality and our own perception of life but nothing denies the ID design as irrelevant of design as falsely confused by many interpreters as being only the design of concrete things in the form of objects.
Following that every notion is a subject of design we are going to take a closer look to the way a human being « designs » his social attitude. Though it may seem absurd we are going to use the headlines of a scenario-like life phase in order to see how the SCAMPER method guides us and our characters in the stories. This approach is close to an observation rather than a creative sequence but as the life phase is « designed » the story shall follow the principles of the SCAMPER method, which is the « product », the story that we would want to sell.
We shall primarily create a conception of a human being in our imagination. Let's think of an ordinary 25 year old masters degree student that lives seperately from his parents and has quite a good life with friends, and let's name him Jack. Now, think that Jack has just been dumped by his girlfriend and is really desperate because he wasn't able to not to think of her. He has passed 3 years of his life with her and now she's gone. Jack can be inside of us, it can be one of us, it can be an imaginary guy that a schizophrenic drew in his sketchbook but the important thing is that Jack can be « reality » and « fiction » at the same time. This created a major problem applying the method to the story because it was hard to choose between a fiction Jack and a real Jack and most of the time the boundaries seem to disappear because Jack is human, fiction or not. At this point this experimental project seems to gain another dimension. Now, we take « life » as a design. Not only Jack is our product as character, his designed life phase also makes part of this product.

The substitution; Jack would always « try to think of something else » in order to get away from the depressive period he has been through. In fact Freud was right, we were trying to replace the first woman of our lives as we were trying to see the potentials of our mate. And Helena was quite like his mother. But anyways he'd rather go work all the night or go drink some beer with friends, try to fill this time gap created by the absence of a lover in his life. Most of the people surely did live this kind of problems and the first thing that comes to mind is to « replace » what has gone. It is a fact that after a long term relationship people tend to feel sad and happy at the same time. Some will go seek for love in other people and some would rather find another life ambition. Substitution of the idea of love and the substitution of the loved one is in both cases considered to be a replacement.

Let's say that Jack did go meet Laura who seemed rather attracted to him. As they were talking about Helena and as Jack was trying to express his feelings at the moment, he burst out into tears and was seeking a shoulder to cry on. As Laura did substitute the rôle of the mother and gave without seeking any rewards this intimacy to Jack, jack relaised that there were other women that were attracted to him. Laura was trying in fact to convince him that there were millions of single women who would love to be with him which in fact is an implicit attempt to make Jack substitute Helena.

The combination; Jack took the advice of Laura and the next day as he called her, he wasn't feeling like meeting or dating someone new. He would not have enough time to get to know someone from the beginning. He can could've substituted Helena with a whore but that wouldn't take away his emotional solitude but only his sexual solitude. Laura was different than Helena, Jack knew it, but as he felt isolated and not strong enough he would enjoy her company « as a friend ». This is the combination that Jack has made, he was face to face with the reality and he had the idea of the substitution coming into his mind but he would not just find another girl friend and stick up with her for another -at least- three years. He just wanted it now and he knew that it wasn't possible to get what he wants just in that moment. Things take time, right? So he combined his wants with his reality and invited Laura for a sleepover. As an emotional guy he would eat ice cream and watch Brigitte Jones with her but as a man he would have slept with her. Things take time, Jack! So he combined, he just kissed her as she was eating ice cream saying her that she looks « cute » when she eats ice cream he laughed leaving Laura surprised. It is in the theory of Hegel that the thesis and the antithesis create a synthesis in every conflict, which is an idea that finds its roots in ancient greek. The changement being the only constant thing in our lives maybe the essence of life is in the idea of the constant conflict between extremities and the resolution is the creation or discovery of a middle-point between these two. This simply is the combination of two ideas. Other than that, referring to psychanalists, the human has the anima and the animus in itself rather than being totally male or totally female. Biologically speaking of combination, we are, in the end, a common product of our father's and our mother's genetical heritage. We already are a combination.

The adaptation; Well, what do you know, Laura and Jack are officially together after a month of rendez-vous and sleepovers. But the thing is Laura is trying to persuade Jack to quit smoking and Jack thinks that Laura would be even more gorgeous if she dyed her hair in red. This situation requires adaptation, she has to adapt herself to Jack and arrange her timetable in order to be able to see him once a week, she has to shave her armpits more often and she has to get a hair dye, but no; she won't do that one yet, it's too soon. But in order to maintain a healthy relationship we know that Laura and Jack desperately need to cope to each other and to find an equilibrum of manners, of timetables, of interests. In order to make this common this has to be reciproque. As it is obvious in our story many evolution theories spoke of the adaptation as the most precious tool that human and other living species had in their hands in order to survive. We adapt ourselves to situations, to people and to the environnement. In fact when a timetraveller comes from the future or from the past the first thing that he must do is to dress up like the way the people dress themselves in that era, if not he would probably get arrested or would be laughed at and noticed. Other than that if I am to be invited to a formal dinner or a costume ball I should respect the dress code in order to enter, which is just another concrete illustration of the adaptation part.

The modification; After having passed the last 7 months together, Jack wouldn't really care if Laura hadn't dyed her hair in red and Laura would even mind the smoke covering the whole apartment, it seems that they are getting more and more used to each other and that is changing the attitudes and perspectives of both on certain things. Like yesterday, Laura surprised Martha saying that she could actually smoke in her office because after all she wasn't that « stranger » to smoke any more since Jack did smoke a lot in the appartment, she got used to it. Certain manners and certain attitudes do change over the time, this modification is due to the perception of a specific human concept in our mind. In one of his plays Sartre described a scenario in which a voyeur was looking through a narrowly opened hotel room door in order to see a woman getting undressed. It is true that when he heard the steps of another person climbing the stairs his perception of what he was doing was right disappeared and he suddenly felt « ashamed » and thought that what he was doing is to be « ashamed » for. The effects of this perception of « another » is a powerful modifyer of the qualification of things. A pleasure can become a sin, a benevolent action can be perceived as deriving from unethical purposes and so on.
Putting other uses; Jack was shopping in a mall one day as he surprisingly saw Helena. What was he going to do? He didn't care if Helena wouldn't talk to him, he wasn't very enthousiastic about talking her neither but destiny guided her in a certain way and they started talking to each other once again. Helena was going to marry next week and asked Jack to help her choose a dress that would please Tom, her future husband. They were getting along great so Jack called her when he needed to find a model for his new project, since they knew each other intimately nude modelling was not a problem for Helena. This is the recycling process of a relationship. An ex is never an ex, like camille said in one of her songs « les ex c'est sex, c'est sexy » (fr. an ex means sex and they're sexy). Humans evolve and change, they are self-forming designs in their head. We have patterns, roles, attitudes and a basic knowledge of how social networks are really constructed so we put ourselves into one specific rôle at a given time and a given situation but this sole utility is not certainly permanent. One can be a father, a boss, a lover, a sex addict and an alcoholic at the same time. We are holograms and depending on the point of wiev we have many utilities as well. The pragmatic approach really survived for long terms over the history of philosophy and in a capitalist material based world this approach to the human as « instrument » or « method » to do, to achieve ambitions is spread all over the world. I can redefine and reuse my contacts and my connections, human relationship titles are not permanent.

Eliminating; Eliminating the alternatives is only possible by making a single permanent and grandiose decision. When Helena marries Tom, she would eliminate all other men to be her husband. This title can change over time with a divorce but since the decision has been made Jack is no longer a candidate for the title of husband of Helena. As we go on we will realize that natural selection theory can be a keyword in this subtitle. Elimination is one of the most primitive rules of our nature. We eliminate the inappropriates; we destroy what we don't or whatever threatens our existence. This reptilian idea still is in the corporate lives that we live. Competition is what makes us progress and in other ways since the change is the essence of life it is the fuel that we need to live. This interactivist or rather conflictual-ist idea is only a perspective but can still be observed throughout many procedures of our modern lives. We need to get better grades than others in a curve system, there is still numerus clausus applied in certain schools and in order to get a profession or to achieve related career purposes one certainly needs to eliminate the others.

Reversing; It is hard to believe but Jack finally broke up with Laura. Surprisingly Helena wasn't doing that well with Tom. She never wanted to be a bride anyways, so she divorced Tom. Luckily Jack and Helena were always in touch. In the end, Jack turns to Helena and they are « surprisingly » still in love. Happy endings are crafted through design. This part of the life phase surely is the part which seems to be more « illusionary » than the other phases the story has been through. That is because the reversal of certain elements or the return of certain things in life is totally « unexpected » and from time to time « unrealizable ». This is the part of the design that leads to a resolution and is certainly the part that completes the « cycle » setting a new plot for a new beginning. This is the phase of the parasites that decompose the flesh and make out of the destroyed « situation » a new hope for new beginnings. The damage that has been done intentionally or unintentionally has to be in a way « absorbed », this is like an excuse, the source of the problem has to be eliminated. We need to excuse or make up for what has been damaged, changed, restructured etc.