Until people generate new ideas in their
minds and ask themselves questions of
how, why, what, when, and where, they
cannot develop new ways of doing things
and dealing with the problems that life
throws at them. If people cannot imagine, how can they learn and approach the troubling aspects of life?
In life, imagination is what sparks ideas
and evokes everything that people do,
think about and create. Imagination elaborates ideas, interprets dreams, encourages changes, turns inventions from mere initiations or origination into money-making projects and enables human mind to see beyond the constraints of the current reality.
Without imagination, humans cannot discover new things that never were, for imagination is the only power that can open up to people the art of possible.
The only way people can learn more of what life requires is to imagine things that don’t exist, especially possibilies of having better life than the present one. And the only way a better life can be attained Is by imagining new ways of doing things. Creativity, trialability, all constructs and concepts of human life come only from imagination.
If there is no sense to imagine, there will
be no possibility for changes and the world will go nowhere, making no progress in all aspects of life.
What is even more intriguing than that is
the fact that a world without imagination would leave people with no capacity to envision the future, invent electronic and medical devices, initiate major social reform, innovate changes in the way things are done or made and overcome problems.
Above all, imagination is indeed a vision humans develop that is even more
powerful than knowledge, beause, what humans imagine could become a reality.
And this is what Albert Einstein’s quote
goes to say, “Imagination is the preview
of life’s coming attractions.”
Imagination is the fount of inventions. Any act of invention, whether it is a pair of shoes, or a piece of medical, mechanical, electronic, or electrical device, starts off as a vision. That is, everything made by man began in someone’s imagination.
Nothing has come by waving a magic wand. Think about the inventions that changed the world: Internet, computers, satalites, intercontinental cruise missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, airplanes, printing, telephone, facebook, mobiles, robots that already replaced workers etc.
The most common way Somali people have no creativity skills is by having “a can’t-imagine attitude.” They don’t look at things from different perspectives. A can’t-imagine attitude is a mindset that cannot allow and enable people to elaborate experiences.
A can’t-imaginge and can’t-do attitudes are literally the same. If people can’t imagine anything, it means that they can’t do anything in a different way. When people get used to ‘a can’t-do attitude’, they can’t make changes they should make in theur life, because every problem sounds to them too big to solve.
The reason why people always try to learn more and kook for new things is that they want to be better than the people they were yesterday.
The variety and scope of creativity in societies can only be immense when they act anew, think anew and then generate new ideas to do things in a better way.
Somaliland needs imaginative and creative people, who are able to approach unforseen problems, think differently than their old generation, find innotative ways and develop new ideas, and can visualize what they might face in the not too distant future. (One worry to remenber is:If S/land people will not deal with climate change, it will deal with them).
A society that has lost touch with its imaginative and creative sides is an imprisoned society. A society not willing to try to be better than the people they were yesterday is having and showing a closed mind.
By: Jamafalaag.
S/land, Hargeisa
