Imagination

J White 

It’s just a blank piece of paper- a sheet of plant fibers, vacant and void, yearning to be overflowed with attention and use. Yet a seemingly bare sheet transforms into an exquisite canvas of city lights and meadow landscapes, a famous script for a dramatic screenplay, an origami creature worthy of applause. A mere blanket converts to a cape of a valiant hero, the roof of a secure fortress, or a companion to snuggle while watching horror movies through one’s quivering fingers. Even this meager English essay becomes a gallant adventure, twisting and coiling throughout unrelated topics until an argument is reached.  This very action is imagination. This process of creating mental images and ideas is essentially humanistic as it provides an imperative vehicle to creativity, intelligence, visualization, and outright entertainment. Imagination provides us laughter, opinion, insight, invention- without it the world would be monotonous, poignant, black and white boredom. Imagination is essential to the universe, and thus is the most important word.

Envision a dreary world absent of imagination: no laughter from clever jokes, no art museums or comic books, no bicycles or airplanes, no iPods or cell phones. You simply cannot, plainly because in doing so you were using your imagination. Imagination is the application of expression, the method of fantasizing, creating, and employing. Without it, man would not have thought to create fire, invent the wheel, or throw some seeds into dirt and call it food as it sprang from the ground. Imagination establishes a hidden world inside one’s mind, a mental concept that travels beyond human senses. It is a universe of infinite opportunity, nonexistent of impossibilities, and capable of unfeasible prospects. Without imagination one would not attempt to explore the galaxies of our universe, one would not try to construct lyrics to a harmonious melody, one would not seek to shroud themselves as a character in a play. Imagination is critical to human nature, manifesting in many forms, strengthening the power of innovation and originality. It is a transcendental formation that combines our experiences and knowledge into a single connected whole; imagination is a universal consciousness capable of the impracticable.

Imagination is the reason for invention, yet no piece of machinery or new technology is capable of employing its own innovative imagination. This is because it is fundamentally humanistic, vital to the persistence of mankind into the pioneering future. This conscious power of mind permits the veracity of youth, the success of adult creativity, the sanity of old age. Imagination is simply the most important word, the most important action. Without it, the blank piece of paper will crumble from desolation.