Imagination

by Victoria-Louise Clark

Imagination; n 1. Mental faculty of forming images or concepts of objects or situations not existent or not directly experienced  2. Mental creativity or resourcefulness.

Imaginative, adj. having or showing imagination. Imaginatively adv. Imaginativeness n

Image v. (-ning) 1. A) Form a mental image or concept of b) to picture oneself  2. Think of as probable (can’t imagine he’d be so stupid)  3. Guess (can’t imagine what he is doing)  4. Suppose (I imagine you’ll need help), imaginable adj. (latin imaginor)

Can you understand that?  Of course, your brain can decipher this denotation, but is it an accurate description of imagination?  I don’t think that ‘imagination’ can be classified so simply.   So goes the saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Well to me, the meaning of imagination is in the mind of the person thinking it.  So therefore, there can be no written classification of the word.

            For example, to a single mother with not a penny to her name, three young children and an eviction notice pinned to her door like a sombre death sentence, imagination is most probably something like this:

            Walking down one of London’s most prestigious roads on a blissfully hot day, the beautiful shoes she’s wearing are so high she can hardly walk.  But she doesn’t care.  Because they’re hers.  The houses either side of her are tall and magnificent; intricate detail etched into their walls with great care and precision.  She turns at one of them, number 248, and walks up the perfectly crafted marble steps.  She puts her key in her red, freshly painted door.  At the sound of her key her children come running.  Each one flings their arms around her.  Their little bodies squeeze her with all their might.  The love between these four people is an unstoppable force, which is apparent for all to see.  Because they are really scared, holding on to her whilst watching people take way their things.  They are back in reality.

            Imagination could be a land that exists only in dreams.  In this land there is no sky, no land, no sea.  It is all as one.  There are no murders, no rape, no mistrust or hostility.  Everyone is seen as an equal.  No standards to live up to.  But this is just another interpretation.

            I asked myself in writing this, what I thought imagination is.  To me, imagination is what I see when I close my eyes.  What I see when I go to sleep.  My dreams are wonderfully vivid, each morning it is almost as if I have read another book.  I close my eyes wondering what adventure my mind will dream up.  Will I be a spy in New York, on the trail of the serial killer attacking America?  Will I fall through the back of my wardrobe and into a new land I didn’t know existed?  A place where the sky is purple, people are so small I have to duck to go into their homes, and the Prime Minister is an emu.  Or maybe I will be a mermaid and I will live in the land of  enchanting animals such as unicorns and fairies.  These are all real instances by the way!

 I constantly have crazy story ideas, different ideas all the time.  Whilst talking to someone, a word they say can trigger a trail of thought away from the conversation and into a story idea.  I find myself excusing myself from the conversation and writing down my idea before it flits off and is replaced by a new one.  In each idea though, a new land is created, new characters are born, and new lives begin to be lead. 

To me, being able to understand the most insane of stories and consider it rational proves you have an imagination.  To be able to listen to a story, no matter how ludicrous the idea without thinking, ’that wouldn’t happen’ or ‘how could she go through the back of her wardrobe, that’s not possible’, proves you have imagination.  People with imagination know that anything is possible as long as you can believe.  As long as you can believe, even if it’s only when you pick up and read a book, to make that seem real is what it is all about.  That is the aim of the author: to display their imagination to you.  They cannot write down in a few words what their imagination is.  When you read a book you are sharing their mind, sharing their imagination, and if you can believe what they have written, then they have tapped into your imagination and you have connected. 

It is your imagination that makes you cry at films.  You make the film real with your imagination and you feel what the characters feel.  A film is only the result of someone else’s imagination.  And if you feel emotion for the characters (whether you show it or not!) then you have connected.

Imagination plays such a huge part in our society; it is not something to be dismissed as casually as it usually is.  It is widely developed in the young, but normally gets hustled to the back of people’s minds as they grow up.  Ever noticed how children have the best ways of explaining things, and they are the most compassionate people.  It is a shame that some of our best qualities seem to disappear when we grow up.  But some people keep hold of their imagination, and keep it in the foreground of their lives.  The most noticed people are authors, newspaper journalists, film writers etc.  People in the public eye for their talent.  But this is only a small percentage of the people blessed with a wild imagination.  Millions of people live their lives with their talent undiscovered, all the while having an awesome imagination going on in their mind and no one to share their thoughts with.  Imagination actually creates a barrier between them and everyone else in some cases. Imagination helps us be the people we are.  Helps us to differ from every other animal.  As long as imagination keeps its position as such a vital part of the human personality, and also the human society, we will remain a most passionate and complicated race.