The internet is filled with the musings of countless people from thousands of walks in life. Their perspectives are a testament to the undeniable truth that we live in interesting and constantly changing times. I do not hold any illusions that my thoughts here will be extraordinary or earth-shaking, but I hope that my thoughts will provoke thought and even a spirited discussion or two. Christopher Columbus once remarked, "Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World." If only he could have imagined what 'Old Worlds' we too have left to our stern...
Imagination
It is a fairly straightforward concept. If you were to ask Napoleon Bonaparte he would say it "rules the world." It was the nearly limitless vision of this diminutive (although, to be fair, he and I are almost precisely the same height) Frenchman that changed the face of nineteenth century Europe. Where others saw limitation and boundary, Napoleon saw only opportunity...
The Oxford English Dictionary defines imagination as, "the faculty or action of forming new ideas, images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." To break down this dense construction to a very basic form, think about childhood. In personal terms, imagination was a requirement for my early years. Television was a luxury reserved for exactly two hours on Saturday morning (while eating Frosted Flakes from a TMNT bowl); Video games...wait for it......had not been......INVENTED yet! Imagine the horrors! Children forced to play outside where there is grass and dirt and fresh air...dirt again...probably a bug or flower or...other...children...
In that horrid world of fresh air and sunshine, however, were opportunities to look at the world around and see possibility instead of being resigned to simply what is. For the young people of today, the world is defined for them. They do not create with the mind, because too much of the world is already created for them to experience. This "passenger seat" mental state is, by far, the greatest threat to ingenuity, curiosity and education today...
Imagination is what used to turn a backyard into an exotic locale to be explored; a tree into a lookout tower; a broom handle into a jousting lance; a young girl into a noble princess or fearsome assassin (#GirlPower) and a young boy into a star baseball player making the winning catch for their favorite team in the World Series. Without high definition movies, 300+ channels of satellite television and video game systems that encompass every conceivable concept and far-off world, children had to rely on the ability to create the world of "play" from nothing but their own imagination. The world around us was what we wanted it to be. No limits. No boundaries. No rules.
I would posit that a young and vivid imagination stimulates the mind in a way far too under-appreciated today. Imagination brought books to life and, as a result, I was an avid reader as a child. And I was not alone in this. Books were captivating because I could make the characters look as my imagination thought they should look. In modern context, the book is an expensive redundancy to the multi-million dollar film being produced with an all-star cast of actors and actresses and a special effects budget that makes up of some smaller countries annual GDPs. Why use imagination to bring a work of literary genius to life when, for the bargain price of $157 you can buy a single movie ticket and a small popcorn and can sit, immobile, and have someone else bring it to life for you? Never mind that the price of that ticket used to be $3-4 and the popcorn for little more than that! These movies are better and the seats are more comfortable. The only additional out-of-pocket expense is sacrificing that spark of imagination that has fueled the history of the world for millennia.
It's the reason why songs on the radio are simply a repetitious phrase put to a pulsing beat (even though I must admit that "Youngblood" by Five Seconds of Summer is pretty amazing...) or simply void of any real artistic value (a la "Anything By Nickelback"). Can there be any other explanation why anyone would want to listen to someone wanting to be a billionaire "so frickin' bad" or just really not wanting to do anything five hundred times per day?
How far down the proverbial rabbit hole have we, as a people, fallen? Do we even know which way is up anymore? The shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue this week should have sparked a social dialogue over why our civilization has become so obsessed with partisanship that instead of supporting a community in mourning we rush to place blame on individuals who were not the shooter. America, it seems, is more interested in whether you hear Yanny or Laurel on a sound clip posted online than trying to have a meaningful conversation to address a deep-rooted problem of violence in our cultural psyche. We are more obsessed with the "Text-ual" indiscretions of a United States senator or the bombastic and ignorant tweets of the president than we are about the reality that the United States Congress has a 17% approval rating with a 95% incumbency rate. Think of the hypocrisy in these two STATISTICS!!!
The problem is that not enough people are thinking any more. We convince ourselves that we are too busy, too tired, too poor, too committed to worry ourselves with the world's problems. But has anyone stopped to ask whether we are actually the problem? History is filled with the exploits of a dedicated few against insurmountable odds and opposition. This is not the first time humanity has been faced with daunting trials, but it is the first time we have faced such challenge without the advantage of imagination.
Last night, as I worked on this post past midnight, I heard Gene Wilder remark that, "We are music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams." Perhaps it is time we remembered that...
