Thirty Days of Thanks – Imagination

“There is no, life I know, to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free. If you truly wish to be.”

That line is from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, one of my favorite movies of all time. I first watched this movie when I was real young after borrowing it from a neighbor and went on to watch it so many times that I wore out the tracking on the VHS (yes… VHS).

That was probably the first instance I would say I was really influenced by the power of imagination and I believe it has had an effect on who I am today. I have now come to place great value on imagination and creativity and the   uniqueness it brings to the world. On Colin Cowherd’s radio show, he frequently talks about the importance of being interesting and the value it brings and I completely agree.

We have the ability to use our imagination to solve basic problems or fill certain needs, but we also use our imagination to go further and answer “What if…”. Imagination can take us beyond what just has to be done to “Yeah we can do that but wouldn’t it be cool if…”. Imagination drives us to do new things, fills our need to create and keeps the world interesting.

The Internet provides a great outlet for people to unleash their imagination and share with the world. Sometimes it is entertaining (Pearl the landlord) and other times it is helpful (how to carve a turkey maybe). Sometimes it is a cool t-shirt, a new website like Twetches that allows you to further use your imagination, and sometimes it is just cats playing keyboards. However it is expressed, imagination keeps things fresh and interesting and often leads to bigger things.

Because of people’s imagination, really amazing things are brought to life. World changing events and inventions come from questions like:

• “Imagine if we got in a rocket and actually shot ourselves into outer space?”
• “Imagine if we could just pick up some object and speak through it, with the ability for someone on the other side of the world to hear us?”
• “Imagine if there were a group of people that could travel around the universe, moving objects with their minds and fought battles with swords. But not just swords, light sabers!”

Maybe life would go on without Star Wars but if no one ever imagined the possibilities in “What if”, we wouldn’t have the telephone and we wouldn’t have ever walked on the moon. Imagine that.

Got something that has triggered your imagination? Some great example of imagination at work you really dig? Let’s hear about it!

Derek Key
@derekskey
www.flickr.com/photos/derekskey

Photo from the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory“