Final answer:
Option (2), The key idea from the passage is that having time to do nothing can spark creativity, as unstructured activities and boredom allow for an imaginative exploration that is essential for personal growth and innovation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The key idea in the passage from "doing nothing is something" is that time spent doing nothing can lead to creativity. This passage suggests that in the past, when people had more unstructured time and fewer distractions, they engaged more frequently in creative behaviour, such as making tools or telling stories.
Today's society, however, with its reduced incentives and opportunities for creativity, risks depriving people of the pleasure and personal growth that comes from creative activities. When children, or anyone for that matter, have time to be bored, that is when their minds can wander and generate new ideas, leading to creative insights and solutions.
Considering this alongside the provided sentence about the artist who was attracted to bright colors as a child, it indicates that those early, unstructured experiences can have a lasting impact on creativity. Furthermore, when discussing literacy, the importance of engaging with the text rather than passively reading it highlights the value of an active and inquisitive mind — a key component of creativity.