As a kid, one of my best friends and I played something called imagination. Many people call it “make believe,” or boys just playing games. But to us, it almost felt real . . . or maybe we thought if we wished hard enough it would become real. In many of our imagination games, we would head to the creek behind my house to a fallen tree we had designated as our base of operations where we had a stash of sticks and staffs that each had their own names and were our weapons of choice against the would-be invaders. We would create worlds, sometimes by creating a character and then the world the character lived in or sometimes in the opposite order. The worlds were incredibly intricate and we would sometimes play the same game over a few times we saw each other and would talk about the worlds we created to refine them over meals when we would take a break for some pb&js (a staple at the King household) for those of you who know me well, you’ll immediately attribute that I played imagination to the fact that I was Homeschooled and made up characters in those worlds because I had no friends, or lacked a social outlet… eh, maybe that’s true for the last one. However, I don’t think we played imagination because we lacked things to do, but out of children's desire to create and imagine outside of ourselves and the world we saw.
Don't get me wrong...
I love technology and the benefits far outweigh the costs. I see though that kids seem to be losing the ability to create and are resorting to copying what they see in movies and in video games. This is not me dogging on media because I think they are incredible expressions of human creativity and thought. Everything should be exercised in moderation. I see that kids seem to be losing the ability to receive the ideas of media and formulate them into their own thoughts. You can see this with the toys that are developed. They have everything to be Elsa from Frozen or Captain America but that almost robs kids from the play that diverges from the story-line that those movies portray. Think of imagination as a playground. It has a structure, that is, the monkey bars and swings are the structure that provides the framework that was created by forces outside of the kids (the builders) but kids have the unique ability to use the playground for far more than it was intended to be. Only children can truly see the ground as lava, or the swing sets as not just swings in the middle of Oklahoma, but as vines to swing like Tarzan in some jungle in South America to evade some mutant monkeys or something. Like a playground, we have the ability through our imaginations to take a structured idea and graft in their own individual expression and thought.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” –Pablo Picasso
Creativity for creativity’s sake?
Why does this matter, though? Is it really a tragedy that kids seem to be losing their ability of creative expression in a world that is becoming more and more adept at actually showing us what used to only be possible in the imagination. Since we’ve all been kids we understand the what its like to imagine and wonder at the world around us like, the world is our personal sandbox. Somewhere along the way we begin to accept that “the way the world works” and abandon our imagination for what sanity? I don’t mean that I want to see 40-year-old men running around fighting off an invisible hoard, but having the ability to utilize your imagination actually helps you to problem solve and engage with the world around you. In an article talking about the science of imagination, they said this about childlike imagination, “…Highly, creative people, are less self-controlled (more child-like), and highly self-controlled people are less creative (thus more 'adult')." The article talks about we attribute things to a lack of self-control, which the majority of children suffer from, with a very positive thing like a childlike imagination.
A Doctor Carlson mentions in this article that imagination and our executive functions work in conjunction, and not in contradiction with each other. Executive functions are:
Working memory—the ability to hold things in mind.
Inhibitory control—the ability to stop or suppress an action that might be the first choice.
Flexibility—the ability to nimbly shift your focus of attention to adapt to a new, or difficult situation.
These functions do not normally have a presence in development until the teenage years but imagination shows an increase in these functions. Kids have the ability to think without the worry of consequence leading them to often times problem solve more creatively. Utilizing your imagination has been seen to lead to an increase of innovation and creativity in people far passed their formative years, which is exciting to know that the thing your relied so much as a child still has a role. We should not use our imaginations to abandon reality but to improve it in total abandonment.
We should not use our imaginations to abandon reality but to improve it in total abandonment.
Some practical steps to flex your creative muscle:
1. Do things that make you uncomfortable.
There is something that happens when we decide to try things that force us out of the familiar and into the unknown. It forces us to think in ways contrary to our normal thought processes, which in turn allow for new possibilities of thought.
2. Creativity can be learned.
We are not all not all born with the same amount of creative brain matter, and that’s okay- because I definitely got the shorter stick when it came to creativity in my family. Like a muscle, your creativity and imagination have to be worked in order for it to function more effectively. So if you want to take a pottery class then take it. See how it changes the way you see shapes and structures in the world around you.
3. Allow others to critique you.
This is honestly one of my biggest weaknesses. I struggle with showing people my work, which results in errors committed that lead to a lack of growth or learning. Surround yourself with people that don’t accept the status quo of the world around you. Find people that are willing to question the thoughts lodged in your head. People who flex their imagination on a regular basis will push you to continue to create and will prevent you from becoming complacent in your thought processes.
These are just a few ways I thought of pushing myself in order to grow my creativity, but I’m sure you can imagine many more to add. My hope is this article causes you to consider the childhood constant that you could always depend on: your imagination. I hope that you can take your imagination and apply the freedom it gives you to create in whatever job you work in, or whatever circumstance in life you live in. Imagination drives innovation but persistence drives imagination into reality. Let your imagination be unleashed in a world that is starving for new ideas to solve problems, bring laughter and change to this thing we call reality.
