Imagination
published: May 28th, 2008
Imagination
image: Nasa
Imagination rules the world. There is no middle ground in this. There are those with the capacity to imagine a future and conjure or manifest it in their now and then there are the others. Which are you?
Consider such thinkers, no let’s call them imagineers, as Albert Einstein or Napoleon Bonaparte who placed great emphasis upon imagination. The thing that sets them, and their kind, apart is the ability to act upon their conceptual pioneering. What does this mean for you in the here and now, because it is always easy to be wise after the event?
Your capacity for imagination is the key to your tomorrows. Whatever you can envisage you can create and bring about. Within any such study there are always caveats to be noted, and you are bound by planetary and Universal law. So you can’t imagine something from the realms of pure fantasy and then complain that ‘this stuff doesn’t work’. Everything that you come into contact with in the world began as a spark in someone’s imagination, from the most startling things such as the Internet to the most seemingly mundane.
In the here and now there are two areas to be considered. They are intention and realisation. What do you intend to do and how much of it actually gets realised? Imagination is rarely the stumbling block, most people can come up with good ideas if they are prompted. What is lacking is in the area of motivation and following through to completion.
What this means is that there are few self starters and few doers. It is reasonable to say that there are two types of people, doers and watchers. Ask yourself, which one are you?
We start our journey bright eyed and full of hope and the twists and turns of the road can make us jaded or weary or cynical. This is understood, it is not a judgement call but the empathy we owe to each other in the understanding that all are brother or sister within the same setting. This is the point when imagination becomes stifled, horizons lowered and expectations diminished. Now I work with young people whom the world has often disabused and treated with outrageous contempt and that is an entire study in itself but one of the strange things that can develop in them is a disproportionate sense of entitlement.
I’ll not put on my sociologist’s hat here and attempt to analyse that but I will reflect back to you about your own sense of entitlement. Do you think that the world owes you a living? If you do then you will stifle your own ability to do and be as you wait for things to be presented to you on a plate, or even a silver platter.
It’s important because you write your own ticket. You create your own reality and establish the tone of what surrounds and is attracted to you. What makes imagination important is that it allows you to be pre-emptive in your life rather than reactive. You can define your own boundaries and specify those things you will have and will not have in your life. There are things that will come ‘out of the blue’ that you could not have anticipated but how will you be when those things arise? How will you react to the unforeseen? Will you panic, freeze, explode? What would you want your responses to be?
Imagination is the ability to allow your mind to free range and explore the possibilities of what you know and engage with what you do not know. Imagination is the gatekeeper of the unknown and each time you visit its house you push back the limitations of your own life a little further. It’s a little like being a hunter/gatherer - you forage in unknown territory and bring back whatever you find to nourish and sustain those who depend upon your skills and abilities.
In the tribe that is you, this is the challenge that life sets before you. How you meet that challenge is entirely your decision to make. Imagination is the tool that unlocks the door into your tomorrows.