What Does Your Imagination Serve? Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

Writer and psychologist James Hollis invites us to ask: What am I living my life in service to? What ideas? Whose ideas? If we don't consciously ask ourselves this question, we will often live it out unconsciously, destructively, materialistically. Money. Stuff. Likes. Processed Vanilla Wafer Ideas. Contemporary Pop Culture's Vanishing Point. Mind-numbing Entertainment.

As a writer, I like to ask this related question: What is my imagination in service to?" This doesn't mean what "message" do I want to communicate through my work. It means what values do I want my imagination to serve. Truth. The quiet moment that will hum through time. The bigger picture conveyed through the exquisitely chosen detail. Our inseparable inter-connection with the good, green world. The spirit that wants to flower. The hum of the honeybee making sweetness.

What do you want your imagination to bring into the world? Our world, with its blizzard of troubles, needs what can only be born into the world through your eye, your pen, your paintbrush, and the lens of your own heart.

What will your imagination serve? Decide. Then bring it.