In my story of Myron the Pig, I had Myron explain our species' imaginative poverty this way:
Because you live in such an artificial world, a world of your own making, where you are told so forcefully what is and what is right,
you have lost your imagination. While I get great joy from imagining
what it would be like to be a crow, soaring up in the clouds and spying
my own dinner, earning it myself, or to be a firefly, you humans have
lost that imagination, you have forgotten what it is to be in the real world. If you could only imagine, really imagine, what it is to be a crow, or a firefly, or a pig, you would not live the way you do. You could not.
In my recent e-mail dialogue with Dick Richards after my review of his book Is Your Geniius at Work?, I wrote:
Perhaps my Genius is Imagining Possibilities. That's what my Innovation Consulting practice is about, on behalf of my clients. It's what my ironically-named novel The Only World We Know is about, about a better, future world. It's what my book on the potential of new-age entrepreneurship, Natural Enterprise, is about. It's what my book on Innovation and Knowledge Management, The Cost of Not Knowing, is about. It's what my newest book idea, The Generosity Economy,
is about. It's what my poetry and short stories, often set in
dream-worlds, are about. It's why I love learning. It's what I was
doing in my own fantasy world for most of my childhood. It fits with
what I'm most often, and I think most unfairly, criticized for:
Idealism. It explains my nightmares and my recurring depression, and
why I'm so unhappy with my tendency to procrastinate. And it's "on
Purpose" of my purpose: Provoking Change.
The
ironic moral of Myron's story is "If you can't imagine, you can do
anything". The corollary, which is not ironic, is that If you can imagine (the consequences of your action or inaction, a better way to live, etc.) you can't not do anything -- you have to act.
I
have explained the difference between imagination and creativity in
previous articles. I am relatively imaginative, conjuring up
opportunities, ideas, worlds from a strange juxtaposition of ideas and
learnings and readings and experiences, a mixing of neurons in my
brain, especially in moments when I am able to let go, when I am under
the influence of dreams, or music, or in the company of children or the
rhapsody of nature. I am not that creative: I have no patience for the
details of bringing something I've imagined into practical existence in
the real world. My job is to pay attention to what is, and to imagine what is possible; the creative people can take it from there.
Bucky
Fuller, among others, often made a point about how our education system
grinds the imagination out of young people. Einstein said imagination
was more important than intelligence. Who or what do we blame for the
rapid loss of imagination as we 'grow up', and the resultant
imaginative poverty of our society? After all, a good imagination has
been selected for in our evolution: It is what allowed us to invent
languages and mathematics and models of what did not already exist,
which has been critical to our adaptive ability and hence our survival.
But in a modern, homogeneous society, do we still need
imagination? I think it's possible that in a hierarchical, overcrowded,
enormously interdependent society imagination is an evolutionary disadvantage:
It breeds dissatisfaction, nonconformity and discontent, and it suffers
in an environment of homogeneity and monoculture. Even language, which
has been shown to affect the way in which our brains are structured as
we grow, drives us to think in linear, traditional, established ways.
So I would argue that over the last 30,000 years imagination has been
bred out of the human gene pool, and what survives is systematically
squelched long before the school system has the chance to inflict
further damage on it. Imagination can be frightening, and our society
ridicules fearfulness (except of things prescribed by the government,
the media and our peer groups as 'reasonable' to fear). I think we
actually learn not to imagine.
Take
a look at the cars we drive -- all horrifically similar, even the
special edition vehicles we pay a premium for. Take a look at the
houses we live in, "little boxes
made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same". Take a look at
the way we dress, even those of us in the so-called 'counter-culture':
We're learning that we can't jam the culture,
and the illusion of individuality is just a means to coopt us into
conformity so we all buy what is convenient for the mass merchandisers
to sell us. Take a look at the porn on the Internet and see how little
imagination it exhibits. Those who imagine too much are disparaged as
dreamers or idealists, and admonished to pay attention to authority and
"not be rude". And since most of us as customers have so little
imagination, and are so prone to conform, there is little incentive for
producers to seek out imaginative people and introduce imaginative
products that might stimulate a little more imagination. As Kal Joffres
says,
"For a lot of companies, being 'innovative' means hiring better and
more edgy designers for their products." So I think we can share the
blame for imaginative poverty pretty broadly.
What can we do about it? Like any other capacity, imagining needs to be practiced, or we lose it. In an earlier post I suggested these ten ways to practice it:
- Pay attention
- Spend time with children
- Remember your dreams
- Change your point of view
- Collaborate
- Transport yourself
- Improvise
- Break the rules
- Believe, and make believe
- Get away from the media
As for changing our culture to make it more appreciative of
imagination, I wouldn't hold your breath. Necessity is the mother of
invention, and when our civilization starts to run into a series of
walls later in this century, and realizes it needs more imaginative
approaches, you, or at least your children and grandchildren, if you've
encouraged imagination in them, will be ready to meet that challenge.
And in the meantime, you'll be making their lives richer. But you'll
also be making their lives more difficult: They'll likely be more
discontented, impatient, and non-conforming. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
