Choose to Imagine

tyunglebower ♦ February 6, 2025 ♦ Leave a comment

We think of imagination as an experience that comes to us–invading our tedious everyday to explode a mundane moment on behalf of our spirit.

We tend to forget that while “imagination” is a noun, “imagine” is in fact a verb. And like all verbs, in indicates action.

While inspiration or creative revery do exist, (and a wonderful feeling they are when they occur), most of the time we first choose to imagine. Especially as adults, we must make the effort to step into “make believe” as it is sometimes called for the sake of children.

Yet even children decide to imagine. True, they make the choice more often due to their inquisitive nature. They also experience imagination out of nothing, without making the choice, far more often than adults do. Nevertheless even little ones will declare, “this box is a car. This doll is the queen.”

I can’t tell you what to imagine, or even when to do so. Those elements vary from person to person. Time, schedule, health, willingness, experience and aspirations all determine what we choose to imagine and in what manner. The only universal is the decision to imagine in the first place.

The busier, more tired, more disillusioned one is with life and world, the more vital it is imagine. It will fade and store itself in the seldom used aspects of your reality if you wait for it to overwhelm you and your daily compounded tedium.

You must go to it, and you must see the benefits of doing so.

That doesn’t mean to sit in the middle of your living room and scribble crayon drawings of dragons onto old scrap paper all day. (though it certainly could if that’s what you enjoy. ) It means to ponder what is not. It means to transcend. It is to calibrate our thoughts to a greater width and depth of existence than we live day to day.

And, sorry to sound scary, but it is one oppressive governments cannot take from you.

Choose to imagine, every day, if only four five minutes before you sleep. The cost of shutting down your creative mind may just be greater, in the end, than sacrificing it as a result of a busy, tiring, chaotic life.