The Death of Imagination...

an essay.

“What game should we play today?” I asked my best friend, when I was younger.
Pausing for a reply I knew it wouldn’t come from another giggling child whose external voice would make its way into my eardrums. Instead, the response came from within, with ideas in my brain moving through me like they would a circuit board. I could play floor is lava again and make stepping stones out of sofa cushions. I could invent some new storylines for my Barbie dolls. Hmm, maybe I could just sit still and pretend our navy carpet was the sea. Feeling the fibres envelope my back and act as if in place of this itchy flooring it was coral reef surrounding me. My friend went by the name of, “imagination”.

As an only child, if I wasn’t hanging out with my mum, or friends, it would be me. There was me and within me there was my imagination and we always had the most splendid of times. Friends at school would ask if I wish I had a sibling and I didn’t understand the question. I liked other people plenty, but I didn’t know lack when I had an imagination bloated with games, ideas and things to visualise. Boredom never came to tickle my neck and snare me into its grasp. As long as I had my imagination, I always had something thrilling to do.

It’s a familiar story. We reminisce about our childhoods and play memories back like records. Recounting tales of how creative we were and the games we invented in supermarket lines and waiting for our parents to pick us up from school. The many ways we’d pass time in the back of cars and front of coaches. Then, what? How did we go from that to checking emails while waiting for someone in front of us to battle with the self-checkout? How did we swap out pretending to be a penguin in the car park to ticking off the list of people you need to voice note before getting into the car? When did we stop valuing the art of imagination?

Valuing is the word I will emphasise here. I value imagination, so I still move through my life knowing it’s my greatest ally. I spoke about never being bored before and my imagination is part of the reason why. As a creative, my imagination is a practice that I show up for each day. I value it. Many of us do and understandably, many of us engage with our imagination to varying degrees. Yet, in society our imagination both individually and collectively is increasingly becoming something that is not valued. Our imagination is dying and it’s such an intrinsic part of what makes us human that it must increase in value again.

The world was built on human imagination. The house or apartment you live in was once a thought in someone’s mind. The surface you’re sat on while reading this, or the pole you’re holding onto on the train while reading this, or elements of the device you’re using to read this. All expressions of someone’s or many people’s imagination. Maybe they were lying down in a park and asked themselves a question and their answer became an object. Maybe they saw a problem and went into their imagination to solve it.

Would it even be 2024 if an essay didn’t mention AI within it? I don’t believe that our dwindling valuing of imagination is caused by any one thing, and that includes technology. I do think that our approach to AI confirms how little we value human imagination and how much we value time and money. For example, we’re in a ChatGPT chokehold because it gets shit done and does so quickly, whilst cutting budgets and the need for people. It speaks to an attitude of, “just because I can, doesn’t mean I should”. Why would you spend an hour thinking of ideas when you can just ask ChatGPT for them? You know you can think of them, but if you don’t have to, then why would you, right? But, therein lies the old problem. What should we use AI for? Do we use AI to ideate and create or do we use it to complete the mundane things that drain our time, so we can then use our time to ideate and create?

I don’t blame AI for anything. I don’t worry about AI taking people’s jobs. I don’t fear for the world that is run by AI. We created AI, we consume AI and what we value as a people will be demonstrated by what becomes of AI. We are training AI every single time we engage in it. It’s easy to act as if AI is something outside of us, and blame its makers. Yet, we the people choose how we use it, what we ask of it and demand from it. If we no longer value human imagination and delegate the intricate, never-ending joy, potential and world-changing possibilities of our imaginations to a device; then we deserve whatever we get innit.

If a single ChatGPT conversation supposedly uses an equivalent of one plastic bottle full of water, best believe I’m going to ask myself before I engage in it, what do I value more? Do I value my time or my imagination? I asked it the other day for a list of literary agents to send my book proposal to. A task that I know I’m more than capable of doing but will keep putting off because it feels like labour. A task that will haunt me from my reminder app for weeks as I keep putting it off, knowing that by doing so it is slowing down the very creativity I want to share with the world via my book. What I didn’t ask ChatGPT to do was to write my book proposal for me, because I value imagination more. The idea for my next book came from living an imaginative life and spending time drifting in my imagination, allowing my mind to roam for long enough to conceive of something like this.

So, what do we value more?

Is time the next barrier between us and our imagination? Time has become a luxury good. Our greatest asset. You can have an extremely high net worth, but be time poor. You can be on the brink of poverty, whilst also being time poor. Which asks the question of us all, what is a life when there is no time to be in it? We can argue that time is a construct, a made up thing, a “you make time for what you want” kind of thing, an “if you say you don’t have time, then you don’t have it” thing. Irrespective of how we individually think of time, we are collectively taught to make the most of our time here while simultaneously being told that humans are here to be productive and to spend all their time wrapped up in busyness and work.

If we’re not working, or more accurately over-working, then we’re filling the gaps of time we have with stuff. There is a bottomless brunch worth of admin that each adult has to deal with. There’s bills to pay, things to organise, cookies to remember not to accept. I spent 35 minutes and 12 seconds on the phone to my internet provider last week. A call that ended with zero resolution. I could have been imagining my next project, imagining ideas for prison reform or even imagining the first thing I’d say to an alien if I should meet one, for 35 minutes and 11 seconds instead.

I’m not an anti-phone or tech girly, I see it as an evolution of our humanness and due to us being chronically online, it can offer us so many reflections on humanity and this point in history. My mentality is swipe and post as much as you have capacity for beloved, do what feels good, reflect on how you’re engaging in it, and for the love of love, go talk to some pigeons, people and peonies alongside it. Be present in your life. The internet isn’t your home, this planet, plants and the people, animals and all life within it, is your home. We know that as part of this, our attention online is being sold and stolen to the highest bidder. We are constantly being distracted by infinite scrolls of content. It’s easy to fill up time between our adult responsibilities with dopamine hits of funny videos or angering ourselves into an eye twitch with awful videos. Where’s the space to imagine within all of that?

Not to mention, the abundance of choice we have for each choice we make. When you are surrounded by options you don’t have to create, invent or imagine new ones. Gone are the days when you’d settle in for the evening and decide which film to watch from the four VHS’ you had. Now, there’s thousands of films to choose from, from about 10 different streaming services. If you want to order something for dinner, you’ll have to decide from about 100 different restaurants. We don’t have to use our minds to create new material, we use our minds to get to grips with decision fatigue from pre-existing things. I love me some 90 Day Fiancé and as the reality TV show is such a success, its producers decided to create over 20 spin offs of it. If it exists, if it works, if people like it, if it makes money, then why waste what we value the most (time and money) to dream up a new show?

Seriously, the definition of the death of imagination is not having to think or imagine anything new. I get really upset when I ask someone a question and they look at me as if I should just Google it. I don’t want to Google things, I want to ask the person in front of me. I want to hear their definition, their worldview, their spirit, I want to see the imagination behind their eyes as they think of a story to use as an example. I don’t care if they don’t know the answer, can’t we just talk about it anyway or play a game where we guess what it is?

On top of all of this, we still have to make time for the juicy stuff. The pasta nights with friends, weekends away with lovers, family lunches, gallery trips, holiday planning, making art, writing, getting creative, cooking, trying to finish books, reading articles your friends have been sending all week, going to the shop, always going to the shop. There’s a lot of life to fit into a life and if the world reminds us every day that doing nothing is unproductive, rest must be earned and spending time reconnecting to ourselves is sarcasm-inducing, then why would we value imagination? Where do we find space to jot down “imagination time” in our calendars? If a friend texts you and asks “what you up to?”, how would they respond if you said, “I’ve been imagining” instead of the default, “nothing much, just been busy”?

Actually, shall we try that? Let’s see what people say if we text them that as a response. Let me know your research findings.

I think about value like this: If you value nature, you’ll wake up 20 minutes earlier to go and sit by a tree before you work. If you value nature, you might change your route home to walk through a park. If you value nature, you might spend your weekends hiking. We make time for what we value, right? So, what value does imagination possibly have beyond the age of six? Isn’t it all game playing and pissing around?

Hell no.

Imagination is a practice where we get to use our consciousness for creation. Creating ways to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, where we tantalise ourselves in thoughts and ideas of how to make a miracle out of each day. Going beyond what we can see and into the playground that is the mind and seeing what joy we can cultivate in there. We get to add some silliness and frivolity to the pervasive “doing” that being an adult is entwined in. Why would we not say yes to that? Why would we not say yes to wondering what each person’s name is that we walk past in a day? Why would we not say yes to making up ridiculous bedtime stories to tell our partners after binging a season of Love is Blind?

My imagination has also saved my ass in many a shitty situation. I had a pretty horrific experience during an MRI scan, when I was in there for nearly two hours, feeling incredibly claustrophobic. My mind spiralling with dramatic thoughts of imminent death and how sad it would be if I didn’t survive it and couldn’t have the hot chocolate I was going to treat myself to afterwards. Now, as I get MRI's every year, I play little imagination games with myself. I sometimes pick a place and imagine myself there, think of a word and create a visual story, think of all the fruit that begin with each letter and imagine them in my mind filling up a fruit basket. It's about coming into contact with our childlike essence and having some fucking fun.

Fun that is free and in your head. The thought of not having something to occupy your mind without distraction is so absurd that the act of not watching films and just being with yourself and your imagination for an entire flight has gone viral.

The death of imagination is also particularly evident in archaic institutions. Where budgets and profits are valued over new ideas. Where it's safer to keep doing the same thing instead of taking risks. Where a lack of ambition allows for a lack of challenging the existing to create a better tomorrow. I can't tell you how many no's I've received in the decade I worked in creative industries and even since then, being self employed. The doors shut because they loved the idea but were too afraid to say yes to it. Weren’t sure of the commercial viability. Didn’t want to go off script. That if they can't see how it can be, then it will never be. In this economy, I see the risks, but at this point, what do we have to lose? If it ain’t working, then maybe we need to do something different.

If we continue to value money and profit over imagination, what will become of us? Nothing pains me more than imagination not being valued. In copy and paste culture, if there's an absence of time and an incentive to make money then why would a museum sit and meet with a host of incredible upcoming artists when they could just put another dry ass Van Gogh or Picasso exhibition on? Exhibitions we’ve seen a million times and artists whose works are so popularised you can get them on tea towels. Why would beauty brand founders who see how well minimalist designs with white packaging laden with black text does, create something in a moody purple that glows in the dark? It's all so dull. So unimaginative. So…safe.

Our world has become one where we can go into a company and ask them to make us a grey t-shirt that's “uniquely ours” and the company will ask us to show them six grey t-shirts that we like, so they can make us a "special" grey t-shirt based on that. What if the company sat down with us and instead asked us what food we enjoy eating, what song we fell asleep listening to, how did the fabric of our childhood blanket make us feel? Then from that information they use their imagination and creativity to create our very own true to us grey t-shirt. Not a replica of what already exists. I want to be in a world that values that. I know that people say there’s no new ideas under the sun, but we can certainly try to imagine them anyway.

Beyond that, if there are no risks, no ambition, no creativity and no imagination then how exactly can we dream up a new world and create meaningful change? When I see conversations about activism and social justice, I see anger (rightfully so), I see details about what's actually happening in the world and how bad it is. I see time spent in protests, rallies, and petition signing (again, vital). What I want to see alongside that, is encouraging time spent imagining what replaces and changes all that is broken and hurting in our world.

Can we spend as much time reimagining what the world can be, as we do shouting about its brokenness? A new world for all of us to exist in won't come overnight. When systems and ideologies are dismantled we need something else. When leaders with harmful rhetoric come into power, how do we spend those 4-5 years? Are we imagining something different to replace it with or are we spending four years complaining that they’re there and then ending up with something very similar under a different name once they’ve left office? In this case, we really don't have time to waste by not imagining what could be born and then doing whatever is possible to birth it.

“For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
- Audre Lorde

Imagination is not just mind games and good joyful wholesome fun to enchant the everyday and be in deeper presence. It's crucial and urgent work for imagining and creating what's next. It's where imagination becomes a creative practice not just for our next book or business plan but for all of us, all 8 billion of us, our planet. We dismiss our roles in the revolution, saying we ourselves are not going to change the world, we say we don't have what it takes, we're not as smart or as skilled as the next person, not good enough. But maybe the question to ask is not if you can change the world but are you giving yourself the time and space to at least imagine what that world could be?

We've seen the manifesting books, all of the articles, Insta carousels and courses. Imagine your bank account with 6 figures in it. Imagine yourself driving that car. Imagine yourself with that Jacquemus bag in your wardrobe. If not that, then think about the placebo effect. Think about the Olympians who visualise exactly what they’ll do in their respective sports before they do it. Who visualise winning. Even if you don’t believe in all of that, but you imagined a parking space opening up and one did; our imagination is a gift. It creates from empty space into form, into what was not there and only thought of, into something that is made real. If you want to go to New York and can’t afford it, go there in your imagination, what would you eat, where would you go, how would you want to feel, how would you move through those streets?

What if we go beyond our individualisation and connect to our collective imagination. What if we all spent 5 minutes in the day imagining a safe, peace, loving and joyful world? The more we imagine a world that's better for us all to live in, the more we'll act to create it.

"If one is mentally out of breath all the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future."
- Elise Boulding

We need to catch our breath. We need to imagine.