“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ever come to a standstill for words, regardless of how clear you can see what you are trying to describe? This is not because your mental image is skewed, or they would not have added so many words to the language otherwise. Imagination is integral to any interval in history exposed to a large portion of change. It is the very nature of change; to design something in a mental realm is the only way to see it in the physical. I enjoy imagination, and have even been chastised for it, but is that not what we are to do? I imagine it to the likeness of getting punished for reading. Obviously, I do not condone driving to the mental plane, out of whatever conversation or work you have to do, for an extended period of time because they bore you, but do not let others tell you that imagination is for the birds.

Imagination itself roots in the reality all around us. We cannot think of a flying contraption without seeing something fly. We cannot perceive green or shades of green without seeing a sample. An example of this would be to have the intuition to know what a shade of “green-red” would be. Not to simply mix these two colors together in an artist’s pallet, but to physically see characteristics of both red and green in a solid color. This is also a reason we cannot fathom what other animals with more than three receptive cones in their eyes can see. They experience more elements of the electromagnetic spectrum than we can hope to without the aid of advanced and sensitive electronics. If you imagine the wide variety of colors we can see and just how many shades of grey we have come up with, it is still only a tiny fraction of the entirety that makes up our universe. But we don’t know what they would look like. We can only distinguish if it might be brighter, dimmer, or if there would be obvious differences.

Onto more complicated things; what is the world you see exactly? Its atoms, arranged into elements, arranged into molecules, arranged into the objects you see. Some can be incredibly dense such as diamonds and mercury, while others can be light, such as the air we breathe or helium in a balloon. But even that’s not what we see or feel. What we see is the complex division of light that does not get absorbed into the material, and we feel how active a material is. We see green on plants because it reflects best, we feel the hot stove because those atoms are excited and bounce around more readily and with more momentum than air, or lesser elements. Knowing this, how would we see without the senses, or with only a few? I would venture a guess to say it would be a very different world.

There goes a story of a baboon and how he got his variety of colors by stealing the paint from the artist who painted all of the jungles beautiful colors. He was angered and slapped his behind, and painted his face. This is an example of a story meant to explain an observance. The greeks did it with their gods for the seasons, and I believe many people once did to acknowledge there must be some higher power to explain everything there is. This is known as religion, which at its roots, teach everyone fundamental manners on how to act as an individual with consequences. This is known as science, in which we learn cause and effect precisely. And this is imagination, in which we can understand all of this and make up our own mind on the situation.

Because we have been limited or given this great depth into the world, we cannot imagine otherwise. I see this as a barrier of imagination waiting to get broken by those who don’t settle for what we have today, only to see more endless possibilities tomorrow!