This post is born out of an article I recently read titled William Blake and the Fossilization of Imagination. It was a wonderful piece detailing Blake’s battle against the “chronic apathy” that weighed down the society of Industrial Revolution-era London. The increasing greyness and smogginess created by giant factories and production plants had somehow been absorbed into the very being of the people that operated them. The human heart, once made of flesh, seemed to now be made of steel and powered by coal and steam.
Logic and reason, two defining characteristics of efficient industry, began to manifest themselves in humanity. People became almost robotic, “reason became shackles to their creative minds and empathetic souls.” The Creators had started to look more like the Created.
Fast-forward to today, and things aren’t all that different from Blake’s world. We’ve actually taken efficiency to a whole new level. Answers to any question are just a few Google keystrokes away, and more information fits on a postage stamp-sized SD card than a thousand floppy disks of twenty years ago. Universities, once a place of free-flowing ideas and cultural enrichment, are substituting more and more online classes for in-person classes. After all, online classes are cheaper, more efficient at processing grades, and students love them because they don’t have to leave the house. They’re so practical!
But, much like the people in Blake’s day, many of us have become products of our own creation. We’re weary, apathetic, and obsessed with “life hacks” which are illusions of life improvement. The article provides a great illustration of this. Despite being able to get more done than at any point in history, the author notes that whenever she asks how someone is, everyone is “Fine, tired.”
So what can we do to combat the rut that we’ve fallen in to? Blake believed, as do I, that we need to become a bit more like children.
“For a Few Quavers More” by Craig Davison
The answer lies in our imagination. Children approach the world with a sense of curiosity and wonder, unburdened by the shackles of efficiency and logic. Their imagination takes them into magical worlds forgotten by adults, where possibilities exist that would never make it through the auditing process of our mature minds. It allows them to, as my brother used to do, find a good-sized stick and engage in an epic sword fight with the trees in our back yard.
Today, in an age where technology seems to permeate every moment of our being, two year olds know how to unlock an iPad and start streaming their favorite cartoons. We’re on our way to being complete consumers of other peoples’ imaginations.
When we were bored, I used to tell stories to my sister and totally make them up on the fly. They’d go something like this: “There once was a guy named…Carlos. Carlos was the friendliest guy around and he lived…umm…on a submarine! Of course, this was a problem since Carlos was 7 feet tall. Fortunately for him, the ship’s crew had fashioned him a helmet out of…an abandoned beehive. Or so they thought…” and so on. Some of them ended up being hilarious, some had twist endings, and most of them made absolutely no sense. But it was fun to do, and I loved seeing what my brain could come up with on the fly.
“Book of Imagination” by t1na
As adults, we have a responsibility to effectively manage society. We need to go to work, raise families, file our taxes, etc. But I wonder if sometimes we get caught up in life, convincing ourselves that if we become more efficient, absorb more information, get more done, then we’ll become fulfilled and experience the flourishing we so desire.
I wonder if we need to dust off that old clunker called our imagination that’s been sitting in the garage since high school and take it for a spin. Write silly stories. Make up songs. Read fiction. Draw. And while we’re at it, making sure we don’t fall victim words like unrealistic or dumb or nonsensical. The beauty of our imaginations is that they’re ours.
I think engaging our imaginations and embracing life’s whimsy are gifts from God; they allow us to be Creators and thus live as his image-bearers. They’re ways of being truly human.
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If you read the article, you’ll notice it breaks off in a different direction from this post and makes interesting points about using imagination to consider ideas from all angles, rather than immediately categorizing them into good or evil, happy or sad, etc. I liked what she had to say, and I think we’re both saying the same thing in different ways: God did not create robots. He created dynamic, sensory, complex, intuitive, creative human beings in his image.
So maybe this afternoon or this weekend, pick up a pen and just start writing. Or go to the library and grab a book off the shelf that you wouldn’t normally grab. Or put on some classical music, close your eyes, and create a visual story to go along with the music. Create, imagine, have fun.
“Imagination. The Lost Art” by Tara Baden
Seeking The Light 
I liked this, Alex! You made me smile thinking of the sword fighting and the story telling! Brother still likes swords and sister still loves stories!