Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Feb. 20, 2002

Imagination dealt a death blow?

There is a 1940s love song that stood the test of time and is now one of the popular standards. Called "Imagination," each verse begins with a down-to-earth definition of what imagination is. Imagination is funny, it makes a cloudy day sunny. Imagination is crazy, your whole perspective gets hazy. Imagination is silly, you go around willy-nilly.

Several years ago a favorite daughter-in-law sent me a smooth, small rock with the lone word "imagine" carved on its surface. It stays on the desk beside my typewriter and serves as a stimulant to my brain as I write. Although it is not listed as one of the five senses, I embrace imagination as a bonus sense.

One of the Webster's definitions for imagery is "the employment of figure of speech or vivid descriptions in writing or speaking to produce mental images." For those of us who grew up in a listening world, imagination created the pictures for the dramas and descriptive words that issued forth from the radio. More imagination was needed as we read books. Even the movies were merciful in leaving much to our imagination in spite of pictures.

Progress may have dealt the first death blow to imagination. When the television became the focal point of our living rooms we had a stage where everything, from the seediest sex to the most uplifting scenes, was played out 24/7. Everything is shown in great detail, bypassing the need for imagination. Just as unused muscles wither away, so is the power of imagination. None other than that great man Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

I grew up in rural America, and I often complained because we didn't live in the city where there was so much to do. Now I know how fortunate I was because I was forced to use my imagination to fill the void. I spent hours sitting high up in the friendly apple tree or in my private Green Cathedral in the woods behind our house. There I discovered the wonders of nature, the beauty of a bird song, the amusing antics of the squirrel. My imagination was unleashed. Another definition of imagination is "the ability to deal creatively with reality," and that was what I was doing.

Because I have such strong feelings about the importance of imagination, I have a wild theory. I have no polls, surveys or anything scientific to back it up. If a human develops without any challenge to use their imagination does something else fill that vacancy? Could that something be drugs? Imagination could also be described as a natural mind-altering process. If that step in development is skipped or not nourished, do chemicals become the alternative to dealing with reality? Earlier, I mentioned one definition of imagination as "the ability to deal creatively with reality." Creatively is lost when pure imagination is sullied by chemicals.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.