While I was looking for evidence of imagination this week, what I found instead was just how little excitement there is for imagination in the world today.
From the minute I get into my car in the morning, with the GPS telling me which route to take and how long it’s going to take me to get to my destination, to the algorithms that serve up what I am supposed to be interested in on my social media feeds, to the lack of human eye contact or interaction I experience in the course of my day, because we would all seemingly rather scroll on our phones than engage with each other, to the number of times my kids tell me to just “ask Chat”, there’s just no space for creative thinking. When you layer in the need to “perform” and “achieve” for the younger generations, with universities requiring sky-high averages for acceptance, and sky-high marks to remain in programs, there’s even less room for creative thinking, let alone creativity.
I had the pleasure of stopping by a local fabric shop this week to browse and pick out a few new Liberty fabrics to add to my collection. This shop is a treasure trove of the most beautiful fabrics you could ever imagine, but I was the only patron in the store. Business is slow – the demand for fast fashion at the lowest possible cost is taking a toll on the popularity of slowly creating your clothes; similar trends are evident across the businesses that support the creative arts.
Put differently, our desire for perfection, efficiency, minimal cost has taken away the essence of what makes life beautiful; detours, daydreaming, imagination.
As I look up to the quote that I started this post with, when everyone seems so miserable about the state of the world, perhaps the antidote is for all of us to use a little more creativity and imagination as we go about our everyday lives. Maybe we should all try to be a little bit more like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland when she declares:
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”
I wish you all a day filled with impossible imaginings and other creative endeavors.
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