Can You Imagine?

Can You Imagine?

We always hear or talk about how children have so much imagination. They are always so creative and can come up with various scenarios in one moment for almost any situation. Then as we get older, life becomes more complicated, we learn more and differentiate what is practical and what is not practical, and for many people, their imagination becomes almost non-existent. Some may have had their imagination die when their childhood did.

But it shouldn't. As a college student, now that I think back on it, I've realized that I don't nearly have the same amount of imagination that I did as a child... no one does. However, that does not mean that I simply will let it die. I believe that is entirely possible to be practical and knowledgeable, and still have a solid imagination.

Author of The Artisan Soul, Erwin Raphael McManus, described just how important this skill is:

"The human imagination is perhaps the most distinct, unique, and valuable expression of being human," Raphael McManus writes (p. 95).

The truth is that anyone with any form of creativity or vision has imagination, and when one does have it, I believe that he/she gains a greater appreciation of life. 

Just about everybody in the arts or entertainment industries must have a sense of imaginative. Let's take the making behind a movie for example: Movie directors and produces who have a vision of the film/movie they want, writers who have a vision and create a script, the actors make the script come to life, the props or stunts that are needed and the visual affects created by talented people behind computers... all of it requires imagination. The end result leads to something beautiful; they found a way to turn their imagination into reality.

Storytellers and musicians, even comedians and the people who create video games have an amazing amount of imagination. Yet it should not be limited to certain people; everyone should have a sense of imagination, but it just depends how open one allows themselves to be with it.

This class (Multimedia, Publishing and Design), for example, has done a great job of expanding my imagination even more compared to before. From having to create things such as magazines and children's books in a short amount of time, it forced me to be creative and turn on my imagination switch really fast. Weeks later, when those assignments were completed, there was a giant sense of accomplishment because you realized that you created something special, something that no one thought of, something that was unique to you because of imagination.