I Just Can't Imagine

I recently watched the movie, "The Magic of Belle Isle" in which Morgan Freeman's character, Monte, declares, "Imagination.. the most powerful force ever made available to humankind." The line resonated with me, because it came on the heels of another encounter dealing with the same subject.

            A few days before, I had a conversation with a psychologist, which touched on the subject of today's youth and their imagination, or lack of it. I became a listener rather than a contributor as she is in a position to read studies and articles that I am not. The conversation got me to thinking. Are the youth of today lacking in imagination?

            She is a few years younger than I am, but close enough to make us contemporaries growing up. Our generation had only three television channels, there were no computers, and the only gaming devices we had were what we made, dug, or built. We played and worked in something called the outdoors. It was our world, and what a vast, wonderful world it was. It was a place where a home construction site became anything we wanted it to be, a palace, a haunted house, a cave, or a fort that had to be taken by force. Often, the scene would change in mid-game, and we would never miss a beat. Scrap lumber and a few straightened nails banged together with a rock provided us with swords, guns, and dollhouses. With the same scrap, we built tree houses that expanded until we reached branchs that would not hold us, someone would fall, and that would be our limit, but we dreamed of going farther, and often did.

           Yes, we got hurt. We broke bones, got bloody noses (you cannot attack a fort without some loss), stepped on nails, scraped elbows and knees, never stopping to clean or bandage them. That would come later. The amazing thing, in light of today's standards, is that we survived. The wounds recieved in conquering monsters in caves, or rescuing a princess from a tower, or slaying an evil empire in an afternoon, were worn as badges of honor saying, "I gave more than you did."

            Should the weather limit our being out in it, and it had to be a storm of biblical proportions to keep us in the house, there were always books to carry us far away. Yes, we read, and to each other as we shared the adventures living in our heads. In other words, we made stuff up. Whether indoors or out, it did not matter, we made stuff up. We used our imaginations. It was what we had.

            Our type of play required that we conjure up places, and things. We built castles in the sky, traveled around the world, fought a war, played in the world series, were football heroes, married as princes and princesses, had elegant teas with queens and kings, all before daddy got home from work and it was time for supper, and we never left our rooms. If we weren't good at making up adventures, or places to go, we could always tag along on someone elses magic carpet, but even the slowest of us could tell a story and off we would go, all contributing to it as it grew strangely and beautifully from the many minds that stirred the pot with imagination.

            Today's youth never leave their rooms either, but for different reasons.  They don't have to, or want to. Like us, everything they need is right there, but there is a big difference. Where our minds and imagination created our fantasies and stories, children today are given the story. With a game console, they can go and do the things we did, but all the facets of the game are provided and controlled for them, and their adventures are in 3D, and virtual reality. They don't have to imagine a thing.

            Computers are wonderful tools, but can be mind-numbing time suckers, taking children places, some, very dark. Children today are exposed to things I did not know until much later in life. They don't have to imagine, it is right there on a screen being played out in all its gruesome gore and reality.   

            Imagination is power. It is the power to create. Whether it is music, painting, writing, or inventing, before it became solid and real, it started as a thought. It was imagined. I was taught that if I can imagine it, I can do it. If it is in my head as a dream, it can become a reality.

            I do not share the foretold doom of my psychologist friend who showed me where the children's brains of today are not developing as ours did. I believe in the resilience of man. Those among present day children who have been encouraged to use their imagination will rise to the top, and though fewer in number, will lead humankind forward and upward, pushing the tree house to the edge of the branches, and imaging ways to overcome limitations. We will be led into different paths, and different ways, but creativity will continue, and the power of imagination will save us. I can't imagine it any other way… and that is a good thing.