"The
empires of the future are empires of the mind."
-–Winston Churchill
Children
play pretend games. When
they get older, they dream of the kiss by the prince or princess who
will deliver them from reality. But
reality takes over and the kids—no longer kids—settle into the
work of making a living. Even
then, they dream: wealth,
success and a happy marriage. They
marry and share a vision: a home of their own and children.
They
grow older. They see
their children in the right schools, in good jobs and married to the
right partners. Age
creeps up and they look back to the days when today was only a
dream—an image of the future, and today’s backward look is more
than a memory: it’s an
image of a past they want to remember.
From
early childhood until our teeth, sight and strength disappear; we are
the products and the sources of our imaginations. William Shakespeare wrote, in “The Tempest,”
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on."
Carl Sagan, astronomy professor and popularizer of space
sciences, said, “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.
But without it we go nowhere.”
The
“worlds that never were” often cause parents to discourage
children from giving full vent to their imaginations.
Just as elders have been known to stifle children's curiosity,
grown-ups have also been known to inhibit youthful imagination.
In
his imaginative book Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince),
French writer/pilot Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote:
Once
when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called
True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest.
It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing
an animal. Here is a copy
of the drawing.
In
the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole,
without chewing it. After
that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months
that they need for digestion.
I
pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after
some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first
drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked something like this:
I
showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the
drawing frightened them.
But
they answered: ‘Frightened? Why
should any one be frightened by a hat’?
My
drawing was not a picture of a hat.
It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.
But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made
another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the
grown-ups could see it clearly. They
always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The
grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my
drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside,
and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and
grammar. That is why, at
the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as
a painter. I had been
disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing
Number Two. Grown-ups
never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for
children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
In
writing Le Petit Prince, Exupéry made a lasting impression of
how grown-ups can suffocate young imaginations. Many writers and thinkers—artists, philosophers and
psychologists—have attested to the importance of developing the
imagination. Here are a
few apt examples.
Albert
Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge...”
“Imagination
is the beginning of creation,” wrote Irish playwright George Bernard
Shaw. “You imagine what
you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you
will.”
Philosopher
and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson noted,
“That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will
determine our lives, and our character.”
American
anthropologist and historian of science Loren Eiseley argued that it
was imagination that first made us human. Man "was becoming something the world had never seen
before—a dream animal—living at least partially within a secret
universe of his own creation. . . ."
Many
business writers, especially those who have written about achieving
success, have lauded the importance of imagination. Malcolm S. Forbes, well-known publisher of Forbes
magazine, said “When you cease to dream you cease to live.”
Every
problem that a human has successfully solved has at some point
required the use of imagination; and yet, this tool--constantly
available to us--is often neglected. The creative mental faculty
(which we all have) generates endless ideas and stimulates the
potential for a successful conclusion to any situation.
In
J. B. Priestley's Arthurian fantasy, The Thirty-First of June,
an exasperated character asks, "What's imagination?
Nobody tells us—at least nobody who has an imagination"
What
is imagination? Several
dictionaries define it as “the mental faculty of forming images or
concepts of external objects not present to the senses.
Imagination is closely related to daydreaming and fantasy.”
Our
education system is deeply invested in training children to further
their rational abilities, though the intense study of mathematics,
science and history. This
frequently guides students away from using their imaginations.
Too often, teachers frown on flights of fantasy and put far
less value on imagination than on cognitive skills.
We’re
taught that reason is more important than imagination.
It’s not surprising that children soon give up being
imaginative, never realizing that successful adult life requires a
balance between the features of the left brain with those of the
right: reason with imagination.
Imagination
is a powerful mental function that allows us to review the past,
imagine possible futures, and do things that we sometimes can’t do
in the outer world. The
imagination is the source of creativity, problem-solving, planning,
and of setting our course in this world if we use it correctly.
Aristotle called it “the window to the soul,” since it
always represents our internal reality.
Few
of us are educated in the use of imagination, though it is one
of our
most powerful mental functions. Our
educational system is geared toward teaching us logical, linear
thinking, which is invaluable in life, but we are generally
discouraged from using too much imagination and are certainly not
trained in how to focus it and use it well.
Fortunately, we use imagination instinctively, since it is a
normal, natural way for our brains and nervous systems to store,
process, and retrieve information.
In
the study of history there is large room for imagination--the
imagination that enables us to realize at once the oneness of distant
times and unfamiliar conditions with our own, and also their
unlikeness. Without such
realization our historical studies are dead studies, our memory a
retention of mere unassimilated facts.
A
healthy dose of "imagination" helps older people remember to
take medications and follow other medical advice, according to a new
study supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a part of
the National Institutes of Health.
If
you’re interested in how philosophers have considered imagination,
the website Dictionary of Philosophy
of Mind provides excellent coverage.
They include Ancient and Medieval Conceptions, Modern and
Contemporary Usage, Imagination and Possibility and a useful list of
references.
An
interesting
site has been created by California State University Professor
Nigel J.T. Thomas. In
addition to his own contributions to various dictionaries, articles
and conference papers, Professor Thomas hosts a discussion board and
has included links to numerous professional sites.
If
you have children between 3 and 5 years old, don’t miss the websites
of video-based early childhood education
programs produced with Yale University Family TV Research Center under
U.S. Department of Education grants.
These help prepare children for school.
In
a country where so many people learn a second language, it would be
amiss to omit the website
for the Center for Imagination in Language Learning.
104 articles collected in seven volumes have been made
available on the website. Reading
just a few of these articles by experts in the field will convince
anyone of the importance of imagination in language learning.
John
Lennon once said, “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
It was also Lennon who wrote, in one of the Beatles most famous
songs: “Imagine all the
people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not
the only one. I hope
someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.”
Imagination
is certainly what English poet William Blake had in mind when he
wrote:
To see
the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold
infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
