Democratising Imagination
There are no facts about the future. But it is alive with possibility. The key to this lies in our imaginations. For some this may be unsurprising, but as a child, my parents treated me as somewhat of a jester. At their dinner parties I’d come in somewhere between mains and dessert to tell stories, do impressions and re-enactments. Films, commercials, jokes, my repertoire was broad.
I can still hear the voices of family friends today, in between awkward laughs and muffled applause, say to my father “Jirre Roddy, the boy certainly has an imagination on him hey”. This has stuck with me because the thing is, there was a subtitle to that comment that was unsettling.
You see in conservative South Africa, and I’m sure many parts of the world, the word imagination carried a bit of a stigma.
An association with being a dreamer; disconnected from reality, lacking in productivity and certainly not linked to any high powered career in law, medicine or finance. In a society where the path to progression was 100% linear, practicing our imagination was typically a form of mental escape, limited periodically to art classes or science fiction books and fantasy films, or for the few outliers that embraced the creative industries.
But today, this is no longer the case. Imagination is no longer a dirty word. It’s in fact a superpower. Just ask Elon Musk - the world’s richest man based purely on the power (and allure) of his imagination.
What I want the world to recognise is that this superpower exists in every one of us. It is our unique gift, and our obligation as humans is to exercise and utilise it.
Because when we do we become more creative, optimistic, empathetic and hopeful. We’re more innovative. We feel better.
We make better things. We’re less selfish. More compassionate. We solve problems. We become better people, friends, colleagues and leaders.
We all feel more powerful. Not in a manipulative, controlling way - but more powerful in our own skin. We start to walk taller.
By widening the doors of possibility, we instil belief in ourselves in terms of what we as individuals are possible of achieving. This is a very powerful thing, because it’s something the world’s governments and media do a damn good job at suppressing, in their interest of maintaining control of the status quo. It’s simply not in their interest for the population to feel transformative or innovative.
I experienced this possibility for myself recently when I participated in an exercise related to the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS). If you don’t know what this is, don’t freak out. It’s a sophisticated data powered algorithm developed by the likes of Google, Intel and Cisco that forecasts the impact of 5 super threats that have the potential to wipe out the human race once and for all. To be clear, it’s not one or the other, but the combination.
By widening the doors of possibility, we instil belief in ourselves in terms of what we as individuals are possible of achieving.
These super threats are related to declining health and pandemic disease; the collapse of the global food system; the global energy power struggle; the volatility of increased surveillance and data; and mass exile at the hands of climate change, economic disruption and war.
The exercise asked for two things:
What is your unique skill that you carry in your profession that you believe sets you a part from your peers?
How would you use this to help our future survive from one of the super threats (that was randomly allocated).
I’m not going to go into the detail of my response but I can tell you this - when I used my imagination, without limits I realised there was actually a ton that I could do, within my control and influence, to counter the super threat I was allocated.
All of a sudden I felt way less helpless, I felt energised realising I wasn’t the passenger on the seemingly driverless bus it sometimes feels like we’re on - I’d just never thought about myself in that context. I instantly felt taller.
So how do we do this more often for ourselves - super threats aside?
Do the exercise above. Please.
Treat your imagination the way you treat your body - you can’t read your abs an article on crunches and expect that 6 pack to appear - you gotta get physical.
Have conversations that feel ludicrous - drop your guard and feed off someone else’s energy.
Play ‘What If’ by taking two unrelated things that exist today, which you believe are going to play a role in the future, and bring them together in a short story that starts with ‘What If’.
Ask more questions. Just ask ‘why’ more.
Speak to young people, more often.
Through this simple practice we can affect profound impact in our lives, careers, and businesses through the liberating realisation that we all have it within us. Think of it as a more fun, absurd and entertaining approach to mindfulness.
Most importantly, celebrate it in others and let’s make saying things like “the boy certainly has an imagination on him”, the biggest compliment we can give.
Duncan MacLennan
Duncan is the Founder of Sunny.
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