Just Imagine!
then forget you're imagining,
and how important the imagining is

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, everything in me in screaming!
Why? I'm imagining that what I have to say is brilliant. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
That's not what it says inside me, though.

It isn't that I'm consciously pretending, playing pretend. Inside me, I know it's brilliant -
in the same way a teenager knows those shoes will make her the star of the party,
that eye shadow will make her shine all night and attract the attention
of the person she imagines - believes - is fantastic.

What is going on here?

Everyone knows kids play pretend a lot.

But how many people know that even grownups who believe they're not creative,
who pooh-pooh all this imagination stuff, this make-believe, who want the facts and nothing
but the facts .... often live largely in a world of their own imagining.

I create a web site. One thing that keeps me going, through all the learning and
through the often very slow progress, is what I imagine will happen.

People emigrate to another country. They are pulled by their imagining.

People gets an education, go to a bar, look across the room at someone they finds interesting.

Imagination. Fantasy.

Everyone knows people who live with their head in the clouds, who never come down to earth,
who dream big dreams and never make everyday life work. We all know couch potatoes
who are armchair athletes, romance addicts who lead gray lives but go through
a dozen love novels a month, and so on.

But how much of ordinary life is fueled by - not pretend - but fantasy, hope, imagination,
imaginary outcomes?

Hope - what does that mean except that, in our minds we see happening
what we would like to see happening?

****

You may all know all this already. But I am (re)discovering it - and also, in my fantasy,
you are blown away by what I'm writing, you are drawn along on my journey.

****

The power of fantasy. The Bronte sisters (later to become the authors of classics such as
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) and their brother Branwell -
lived in their fantasies for years.

I remember, as a child, caught, night after night, in the stories I read in the day.
And in my twenties, I would sometimes still get caught, at times for more than a day.

****

I've heard that many people waste their days, letting time be frittered away answering emails.
Time management, the experts cry. These people need better time management.

Many of them (of us) may need better fantasy management. There is in me always
the tiny irrational hope that something special, something wonderful will come via email -
something that answers an age-old longing.

*****

We just can't help it. We humans - most of us anyway - have an active imagination.
We imagine disasters, imagine successes. We dress up and imagine love or imagine heart-ache.
We invite people over and imagine a dull boring evening or a sparking fantastic evening.

The fantasy of happily ever after. The fantasy of being a hero. The hope of recovery from a major illness. The imagining of illnesses that have not happened. The dream hope imagining
of reaching our goal.

****

We tend to associate children with play pretend. Yes, they're very open about playing pretend.
Adults often hide our active imagination from from ourselves. What are you doing? Cooking,
we may answer. We'll rarely say: I'm playing pretend in my head, imagining an evening
where everything flows, where the hours disappear like minutes.

Sometimes of course we don't play pretend. We're just making supper. Or we're thinking about
stuff that happened during the day. Sometimes we're zombies, going through the motions.

But so often, there we are, doing something like buying new shoes - and it's not just that.
Yes, sometimes we're just buying shoes. But if we have more shoes than we need,
we're not just buying shoes. We're, on some level, imagining that those shoes will bring us
something - love, happiness, excitement.

I remember Imelda Marcos, famous for owning over 3000 pairs of shoes. She wasn't looking
for comfort, the right shoe for that kind of day - but somehow the shoes were supposed to
bring something beyond foot covering.

Kids are just more open about it.

****

And me, how am I playing pretend? How am I having an active imagination? I'm imagining
you find this interesting. I'm imagining a lot of people find this page and get something from it.
One of my big inner drives is to give to others things I find valuable - so I'm imagining that you're going, aha! that's true! hadn't thought of things just that way, but yes!
And I'm imagining this adds something good to your life. So in a somewhat crazy way,
I'm imagining I'm doing good in the tiniest kind of way.

****

What we imagine - a kind of sub-text to our lives, something going on below the surface of things.

****

So far, imagination sounds kind of nice and warm and fuzzy. Like almost everything about us,
it's a two-edged sword - or multi-edged, actually. Nero fiddled while Rome burned,
goes the old saying. Clearly he was cut off from caring for those around him.
It sounds like he imagined himself more important that other people.

Our capacity not to empathize, and instead get caught up in imagining the other as a monster,
is enormous. That's a bloody awful side to imagination.

How to improve imagination? To quote Einstein, truth is what stands the test of experience. He's better known for one of his other quotes, imagination is more important than knowledge. Most people stop there. His quote actually goes a lot further:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world,
and all there ever will be to know and understand.

And with that, we're back to valuing reality. Note that imagination doesn't take us away
from reality, as Einstein sees it, but toward more of reality:

Imagination embraces the entire world,
and all there ever will be to know and understand.

So to improve imagination, embrace the entire world which includes the untold possibilities
for the future which we can imagine ourselves toward.

signed,

Dr Zee
December 11, 2008

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2008, 2011 all rights reserved
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2008, 2011, 2011

****

To go from Just Imagine, on the Active Imagination,
to more exploration of
The Importance of Imagination,
click here.

For a full exploration of
The Importance of Imagination,
click here.

To go from Just Imagine, on the Active Imagination,
to Stimulating Imagination Quotes,
Provocative Imagination Quotations,
click here.

Just how important is imagination?
Check out what language reveals in
I Can Only Imagine.

YOUR COMMENTS
YOUR THOUGHTS
YOUR EXPERIENCES OF THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION

DR ZEES LOVELINE
ACTIVE IMAGINATION * IMPORTANCE OF IMAGINATION
I can only imagine * it's only your imagination *
vivid imagination * active imagination * over active imagination
IMPROVE IMAGINATION
DR ZEES LOVELINE

The Active Imagination, Vital Ingredient, Two-Edged Sword.
Importance Of Imagination, Improve Imagination,
Journey Into Imagination, Imagination Quotations.
Personal Story Plus.

Dr Zees LoveLine
"In love you could shine like a brilliant star."
Fortune Cookie

I remember getting that fortune cookie - it caught my imagination.
It stirred my active imagination. I wanted it to be true, to become real -
I longed to be loving so much I was shining like a brilliant star.
The fantasy of happy ever after.

DR ZEES LOVELINE
love liking longing aching wanting desiring having holding caring *
hate anger rage outrage disgust * disconnection boredom *
active imagination * vivid imagination * just imagination * hyper active imagination*
imagining * make believe * play pretend * fantasize *
the importance of imagination * the power of imagination * active imagination *
DR ZEES LOVELINE

MORE ...

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