IMAGINATION – wouldn’t be here without it

Imagination is the process of producing mental images; perhaps some images not often based fully on any reality, but more so dabbling in colorful fantasies mixed with wild wishes. Cave-people must have done a lot of imagining back in the days considering all the spare time they had due to the lack of gadgets, annual tax returns and the absence of TV reality shows. During the thousands of years since then, we have all kept imagining this and that, and this and that have brought us to where we are today; we wouldn’t be here without the use of our vivid imagination.

I imagine and truly believe that whatever we want to achieve, want to reach and experience, starts with a wish, a hope and a feeling; then we turn on the imagination and we find a way how it could, should and will be reached – for the most part. 

By imagining a goal, we have already started the solution process, forging ways by means of transforming imagination into reality. When we know what our goals are, we will have a smoother journey getting there, making it easier. Okay, so back in the days I imagined me and Brigitte Bardot (1960’s hot sex-kitten) would get together and though I imagined that a lot, it did not bring me one single step closer to her (or that body of perfection); of course that’s where extended fantasies take over (sigh) – but I don’t have a problem with that, of course; do you?

 

In real life, we can imagine anything, so many possible solutions to everyday living. If Steve Jobs had not relied on his imagination, combined with an innate stubbornness of what could be done, of what he wanted to see materialize, we would be far from enjoying any Apple products today. He trusted that what he imagined would become a reality – and then he worked very hard to get there.

We use our imagination many times a day – I use it a lot (writing two new novels of fiction at the moment) and I most certainly hope you imagine a lot as well. It’s a nice ‘other’ world to visit, especially when we also imagine silly things – makes life a bit more colorful, fun and interesting.

On the dating scene, trying to meet interesting people, whatever we define as ‘interesting’, our imagination often goes totally off track, as in wild and crazy. You see this physically pleasing individual at a party, observe her or his body-language, moves and manners, and you start to imagine a whole bunch of ‘other’ stuff, most of which are rarely correct. You imagine that person being somebody you really wish for; a nice fit in personalities, intellect, humor, wit and charm. And all this before you even talk with that person. Of course you can also imagine that she or he probably does not even want to speak with you – at all. In that case just imagine that he or she is married, has an unusual and rare African jungle disease, a sexual preference very different from what’s considered normal and is seriously allergic to your engaging personality – now go figure.

Thinking back to the time I saw my wife for the first time, I actually never even took a moment to imagine anything about her (here goes my theory), categorize what I saw into whatever, and so forth. I seriously just saw her, was in love just as fast and eagerly elbowed my way to where she was so I could meet her. On the short way I was already sure that I would eventually marry her. And all this with no help of any imagination, as any imagination really could not have predicted that we would still be best friends and very happy some 30-plus years later – imagine that.

The really cool thing about imagination is that we can imagine anything what-so-ever. George Lucas went wild and utterly rich with the use of his imagination (that would be the Star Wars franchise). J.K. Rowling invented Harry Potter when she was a single, out of work mother. She simply imagined and therefor created all those characters and stories, wrote it all down and caught millions of new book readers of all ages. Albert Einstein imagined there had to be something more to the general theory of relativity, so he came up with e=mc2. This and the extremely long list of successful results based on our imagination have brought us to where we are today; it is the main fuel for progress.

“Knowledge is limited – imagination has no borders” (Einstein)

John Lennon’s song Imagine is a grand example of what could be – should be. John imagined peace as being obtainable when (not if) we all wanted it. And he was right… and he still is.

If we really want to be part of this ‘progress’ we will of course have to move our butts, meaning do something about it. Of course it’s not enough to just imagine something, wishing for it to magically happen and thereby become independently wealthy overnight (or before noon)… Not gonna happen (I tried several times, so I know)…

That brings me to the point, that we don’t need the big revolutionary get rich really fast ideas coming from imagining things, though it would not get in the way, really. But it’s all those everyday things we imagine could happen – and then perhaps they will happen – by lifting our butts a bit to help moving it along.

At times imagining too much is met with disappointment. You finally landed that date with Kenneth; you have dreamed and fantasized about him for so long, ‘imagined’ how he would be on that first date, perhaps gone through the whole date as you ‘imagined’ it would happen, from the nervous “you smell good” till ‘to kiss or not to kiss’. You imagined him as a dream-machine. But as the first hour at the restaurant is dragging along excruciatingly, Kenneth is not even close to any form of dream-machine, but more so a nightmare from Hell, featuring bad breath and cheap cologne (or was it motor-oil?)

So we should be a bit careful about to what extent we pre-imagine some things and especially with respect to people. We can easily overload our expectations, using too much vivid imagination that more-so becomes wild and insane wishes instead. 

We use ‘imagine that’ a lot and that is excellent, as it reminds us of that superb power imagination has. Sure we can get tangled up in wild imaginations (Brigitte & Peter – notch notch), but that is just part of it. Always remember that most of the stuff around us are creations that have become reality, starting with someone imagining it could happen – and then it did; how cool is that?