Imagine

I was riding the train Thursday and listening to the Earth Wind and Fire (a.k.a. Elements of the Universe) song Imagination when the lyric “so I imagine my heart with you, See what imagination can do” brought vividly to mind an elementary school classmate named Benjamin. Well, Benjamin isn’t his real name but since I can’t remember his real name I’m going to call him Benjamin. At any given moment during the day you could catch Benjamin fixated on an object in the classroom or outside the window. Classmates would often notice Benjamin’s fixation and try to figure out the source. I too would try to determine the source of his fixation but at a distance and in silence. I soon figured that the various objects that Benjamin was fixated upon weren’t visible to him at all. You see, Benjamin wasn’t staring at the tree or the desk or the pigeons eating the remnants of the morning snack. You could have yelled fire and Benjamin wouldn’t have moved because he wasn’t in the same room with us or on the same planet. Benjamin had picked up, traveled inside his mind and was exercising the most powerful force in the universe. Benjamin was connecting with that creative juggernaut called Imagination. The power of Imagination is proven every time any of your five senses is engaged. Everything in existence is here due to imagination. Imagining is nothing more that making an image of something that does not yet exist. Once the image is made you only need to take action to manifest that image. Imagination is unlimited. Imagination cannot be turned off. Imagination is available from birth to death.

I often think about Benjamin and some of the incredible things he may have accomplished or the beautiful, inexplicable places he may have seen. I so hope that he has done incredible things and seen beautifully, inexplicable places. I hope Society didn’t find him during his transition from childhood to adulthood and put upon him its design for living life or reach into him and throttle down his imagination to an idle as has happened to millions, maybe even you. Perhaps you were like Benjamin with an imagination that traveled at the speed of light empowering you to do impossible things in places that didn’t exist. Did Society find you and tell you that you were too old to exercise your power of imagination? Did Society tell you that imagination is for children? Did Society tell you that you have a family now, a mortgage, a job, bills to pay and you need to grow up? Well, the next time Society shows up to tell you what you should be doing tell Society to shut up and get out of your face.

I implore you to use your imagination everyday just as Benjamin did. Not only do I want you to do it but I want you to insert into your children the passion to imagine. As a start, set aside a daily quiet time for them to be one with their imagination and assign them to imagine what their dream house would look like, what problem they would solve for the world, what device would they create, what mountain would be climbed or what galaxy would they visit. Don’t you stifle their imaginings or insert your opinion. Just let their thoughts travel unbridled at the speed of light. They can draw their thoughts or write them down or just let them flow through their minds like a mountain stream. Let the child dictate how to express, you just need to set aside the time and create that quiet, non-distracting environment where the imagination can awaken.

I wish I could find Benjamin and see if he stayed true to himself or succumbed to the whims of Society. I may never know but I gain some solace in knowing that your child is another Benjamin just brimming with creative energy. All you need to do is create the environment, provide encouragement and watch the path to Greatness form under the feet of your child.