From stoplights to skyscrapers, turn anywhere in civilization and you will see imagination at work. It's in our inventions, advances and remedies and how a single parent masterminds each day. Imagination is boundless, surrounds us and resides in us all. How much of its capacity do we actually use, however?
I often think about the many remarkable things that my personal computer can do which I never ask it to do. I probably use a small fraction of its capabilities. I often wonder if the same dynamic occurs with our capacity for creativity.
Access to powerful tools for the expression of imagination has grown while opportunities for so many other things, like owning a home, seem to have diminished. Imagination often thrives in the presence of challenges, though. That's just another of its wondrous facets.
It's strange to think that we put a man on the moon almost 50 years ago. The technology for achieving that feat has progressed but has our spirit of daring done the same? Have some things become too hard while others have become too easy? Are books better because of word processing? Are films better because of new technology?
I recently went to a house where my family once lived. My father's ingenuity runs throughout that house with contraptions he created to make our everyday lives easier. My father passed away 23 years ago but his imagination is still very much alive in that home, in my life and in any life I might touch. Perhaps it's fitting that imagination and immortality share the same number of letters.
In these times of stress, snark, division and despair, I still suspect that two of the most important features we possess are imagination and a capacity for goodness. Those are qualities for which we will be remembered most fondly. For no other reason than to experience its profound impact on yourself and your surroundings, do something creative today.
If humanity is being swallowed by a modern primitivism, imagination might be the thing that saves us all.
Just add courage.
For your chance to see your imagination up on the big screen during Tribeca Film Festival 2014, enter your script at imaginationseries.com