This is apparent when you take a closer look at it.
Most of the insanity of the world today is happening, I believe, due to a lack of imagination.
When your so-called leaders are hyper-focused on fleeting power, money, and trying to return to values that never were, this is apparent. Why? Because they’re not able to imagine what doesn’t already exist.
Think about it. Look at the move to return America to the bizarre, idealized 1950s that never were. You know, the one where “men are men” and “women know their place” and the white, straight people are the only real people. A place that never was, but where most of them think we took a wrong turn.
The lack of imagination is evident because they cannot conceptualize the much bigger, global community that is today’s true reality. Yes, all the nations exist – on paper. With the exception of mountain ranges, rivers, other bodies of water, and genuine terrain shifts, all the borders are made-up constructs. Lack of imagination, however, keeps many focused on the lines on the maps because anything else is too big for them to imagine.
Progress, intentional growth, and directed change are products of the imagination. Stepping backwards, trying to return to a time and place that never was (i.e., there is not now nor was there in 2016 the need to “make America great again”), is the product of a lack of imagination.
Dreams become reality all the time
In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made one of the most famous speeches in history, featuring the immortal words,
“I have a dream.”
Dreams are manifestations of the imagination. With those words, Dr. King shared his vision of a world where the color barriers dropped, where true equality – no matter race, gender, or color – was the norm.
Then, someone with a lack of imagination assassinated him for sharing that vision and leading the Civil Rights charge.
Today, more than 60 years later, the fight for equality is back in action. Why? Because of a lack of imagination on the parts of too many people who can’t handle a diverse, equitable, inclusive, global world and need desperately to cling to their limited, restrictive beliefs.
The biggest issue with a lack of imagination is when it strikes against reality. Reality that is the product of active imaginations and manifestations of dreams.
Imagination made manifest
What are you reading these words on? Tablet, smartphone, computer? All of these are the product of the imagination and didn’t even exist less than a hundred years ago. The endless cars moving down the street outside my window? Rare and wondrous also less than a hundred years ago.
We take for granted that instant global communications, the internet, vaccines, Amazon, contact lenses, polyester, and every piece of tech are the products of the imagination. Someone had a far-fetched idea that led them to invent something that got us to where we are today.
How much we have developed in the past century is surreal. In no other time in history has the world been at your fingertips, accessible to nearly all, and open to such broad interpretation. For many, this is incredible, exciting, and full of potential and possibility.
However, for many, this is dubious, awful, and full of fear. Hence, certain so-called leaders, recognizing that, are exploiting it to gain power rather than helping those people come to terms with the bigger, more global perspective of the world.
Creating a false reality
Those exploiting a lack of imagination do so by implying (and sometimes stating outright) that those people are being left behind. Then, they go on to tell them that there is not enough of “X”, insufficient “Y”, and a scarcity of “Z”.
All of which is utter bullshit. Yet, exploiting the lack of imagination is a product of a lack of imagination. Why? Because those exploiting it also fear what they exploit. Additionally, they’re also unable to cope with this fast-paced, too-fast-changing world.
Rather than develop a sense of imagination, they attempt to take us back. Unfortunately, the place they seek to return to does not now – nor did it ever – exist. Hence, denying the power and equality of women, people of color, and the existence of LGBTQA+ individuals is being returned to various institutions and organizations.
Since they can’t imagine the world as it is, they strive to create a false reality where imagination is shunned and feared.
Developing imagination is essential to progress
For this reason, the world needs artists of every ilk now more than ever. We need to teach people to be open to imagining potential, possibility, and things beyond what they can see and touch. Not in the sense of the rules of religion, deities, and other institutions of control, but in the sense of humankind’s inherent ability to create.
No other animal on Planet Earth has the kind of imagination humans possess. If they did, they’d also build cars, houses, smartphones, satellites, and such. All the things we take for granted are products of the imagination.
Without imagination, we’d still be dwelling in caves, hunting and gathering, and struggling to survive. Imagination is how we progressed more in the past century than any other time in history. The only reason some people feel aggrieved and left behind is a lack of imagination because of too much focus on tangibles like money and power.
This is why I write sci-fi and fantasy. Not just to share my vivid imagination, but to get you, the reader, to also open yourself to imagining.
A lack of imagination is why we’re facing such hostile, fear-driven leadership. We can’t make them imagine, but we can use our imagination to find new ways, new solutions, new ideas to move past this bullshit.
Keep dreaming, keep imagining, and keep sharing.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own creator, whatever form that takes?
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