Reflections on Imagination: Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun
During a podcast episode titled Jung’s Path to Creativity and Inner Freedom (This Jungian Life August 21, Ep 386) I had an immediate reaction to something Lisa Marchiano said:
So, to…create anything at all, whether it’s a stone tool or a spaceship, you have to be able to imagine it. You have to see it first. You have to be able to visualize it and have an idea about it.
Doesn’t this miss a step or two? Did Einstein visualize relativity before creating it? Perhaps we begin with a problem we need to solve, or an intention to do something, and then play with possibilities. When I start writing a poem, I do sometimes have an idea, but I don’t know what the poem will end up being. (This is a good approach for poets who follow the mantra: no surprise for the writer no surprise for the reader.) Even when writing a novel, I may have an arc, or a premise in the beginning stages. But when I’m stuck in a scene where I don’t know what happens next, I have to play with possibilities--what if, what if. Will this work? Will that work? Imagination is process.
Now, maybe Marchiano’s thought is more relevant for creating physical objects like stone tools and spaceships Intention: we want to go to outer space. Problem: we have to figure out how to get there. Imaginative projection: maybe we need something like a ship that crosses oceans. Creation: A long, long process where our imaginations play with “what ifs” in order to physically create that spaceship that got us to the moon.
So, to…create anything at all, whether it’s a stone tool or a spaceship, you have to be able to imagine it. You have to see it first. You have to be able to visualize it and have an idea about it.
Doesn’t this miss a step or two? Did Einstein visualize relativity before creating it? Perhaps we begin with a problem we need to solve, or an intention to do something, and then play with possibilities. When I start writing a poem, I do sometimes have an idea, but I don’t know what the poem will end up being. (This is a good approach for poets who follow the mantra: no surprise for the writer no surprise for the reader.) Even when writing a novel, I may have an arc, or a premise in the beginning stages. But when I’m stuck in a scene where I don’t know what happens next, I have to play with possibilities--what if, what if. Will this work? Will that work? Imagination is process.
Now, maybe Marchiano’s thought is more relevant for creating physical objects like stone tools and spaceships Intention: we want to go to outer space. Problem: we have to figure out how to get there. Imaginative projection: maybe we need something like a ship that crosses oceans. Creation: A long, long process where our imaginations play with “what ifs” in order to physically create that spaceship that got us to the moon.
(Interesting side note: We didn’t name airplanes airships, even though they cross big, empty spaces. Perhaps the word ship is more evocative of the vehicles needed to cross the vast unknown, like oceans and outer space and death—the Charon ferrying souls over the River Styx.)
Let me end by saying that the podcast episode is excellent.
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