The Power of Imagination Knows No Boundaries

Emily Schaefer: Fluff, 2011
Acrylic on Panel, 24" x 30", Private Collection
Telephone Booth Gallery | Emily Schaefer's collection of paintings

Imagination is very important to push the boundaries and I believe the world needs more of it.

The following is an excerpt from my speech to Toastmasters.

Imagination
the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
Albert Einstein

Not just in scientific research, but in very day life. Imagination is very important to push the boundaries and I believe the world needs more of it.

Our imagination is of course influenced a lot by popular culture, recently I watch the remake of Total Recall, set design was a bit Star Wars meets Bladerunner, indicating that even the movie makers are influenced in their imagination on what was before, but since imagination knows no boundaries there is the potential to dream up more original stories. Kids are a great example.

My nephews were visiting and they are at the age where they still act out their imagination and don’t care where it leads them. I get into the door and immediately the 3 year old latched onto my leg and shouts "Aunty Martina, lets play cave, come, come, come …." And off I go, because in their company I can be a silly as I want to be. Refreshing.

Playing with them in their world of monsters, dinosaurs, ghosts, Star Wars and other, it really hit home again that imagination does not know any boundaries: ghosts can shoot laser guns, they were special ones, they could be held up with ghost fields, our cave people had high tech lighters, we rode bats as big as ships to get around (lassoing them was a task).

We imagined whole alternative worlds during playing. With, I might say, very little props. And the beauty is that even though their pictures in their mind where different than mine, but we could bring together stories. And the story evolved and developed. It’s like brain-storming.

But somehow as we grow older we do this less and less. We are mired in a world of reality, having to be realistic. But I think having a great imagination is important in life, I chose after all to have architectural training. Having to go through design processes you need to look at situations from different point of views, to think outside the box, so to speak.

I can only speak from my personal experience, and I always had a vivid imagination, sometimes it got me into trouble, sometimes I push the envelope too much, sometimes I rush into things because I imagined great outcomes, but I would feel lost without my imagination.

I am not an advocate of unlimited day dreaming, or living in a make-believe world, but I believe if we as a society would put a little more emphasis on encouraging innocent play as adults, flights of fancy and being able to push the envelope with which on the surface might be "stupid" ideas I believe we could move the world forward.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. And I would like to encourage everyone just start playing to either use or rediscover your imagination. Write stories, they don’t have to be about goblins, fairies and giants or other make believe creatures, they could be about day-to-day life, solving problems or just flight of fancy.

Martina Ernst
President/CEO
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build