Imagination a reflection of your best, true self

Grade 9 students in the Collective Voice program at Aden Bowman Collegiate share their lives and opinions through columns. Selected columns run each Monday in The Saskatoon Starphoenix.

When I was little, my brother and I would spend days on end living in worlds of our imagination. With my friends, I would play games in which I could be whomever I wanted. If we really thought hard enough about it, these worlds seemed real, and to me that was one of the most exciting things.

I have found that one of the worst things about getting older is that imagination is frequently disregarded. I find I constantly have fantasies and ideas in my head that have nowhere to go except on paper. It almost seems to me that with the way society is structured now, you can only choose one or the other: reality or dreams.

Not many things in life cater towards the imaginative. I feel as though schools become less and less so as children grow older. Imagination is something people associate with children, and teens are supposed to be transitioning into adulthood. From my personal experience of talking with teenagers and adults, I have found that they generally don’t speak much of fantasies and ideas and dreams. But when they do, it’s the most amazing thing to watch and hear.

It’s sad how rare those vulnerable moments have become as I have grown older.

I have been wondering why it’s so uncommon for people, once they grow out of childhood, to present the world with their dreams. I think because society is not structured towards the imaginative, being proudly so is more of a quirk and is seen as dif- ferent — and being different means pushing against the current of everyone around you, which is hard.

In one of my classes I conducted a survey about imagination because I was curious to see if other students value it as highly as I do.

Many of them said imagination is very important to them and that they would have a difficult time living without it.

Although I have no way of knowing whether or not anyone else feels that imagination is under valued, I do know that I have almost never heard the dreams and ideas of my peers and, unfortunately, I don’t really know how to share mine.

What would happen if we all knew how to share our ideas, instead of losing them in the monotony of everyday life?

Many great inventions were inspired by the ideas of successful dreamers left to their own devices. For example, the inspiration for cellphones came from the science fiction hit Star Trek.

If the dreamers behind ideas like these hadn’t known how to share their ideas, or hadn’t had the opportunity to imagine, would they have turned out the same?

We need to find ways to incorporate imagination into our daily lives, especially during school and within the workplace. When people are left to simply imagine, it ignites a rare sort of passion and excitement about life. We need to let children, and even adults, play without structure sometimes.

At least occasionally, it’s OK to blur the line between reality and dreams, especially if it means improving the real world.

Dreamers are the creators of the future and will bear the light when the world grows dark. Fantasizing should be celebrated, no matter your age. With all the good that dreaming brings, I don’t see why we leave it nearly untouched throughout adulthood. After all, I would say that one’s imagination is a reflection of their best and true self.