The Gift of Human Imagination & the Great Cost of Losing It

23 October 2015

 - Imagination is one of those things that have been grossly misjudged throughout history and up to a certain point vilified through the growing cynicism of a modernised world. Society consensually projects the idea of imagination to childhood and it often equates it with immaturity or a lack of thinking seriously and rationally. Even artists and people with a creative flair in general have been directly or indirectly discredited at some point in their lives – either at school, at home or by their peers. It’s as if the liberal use of the imagination is silently shunned by society.

The root of all this comes from a global culture in developed countries that has been increasingly leaning towards a patriarchal, logical and rational based society. In spiritual literature, creativity is seen to be more the domain of the feminine and in neuroscience, creative imagination is found to be more dominant in the right hemisphere of the brain. If you look at the history of the western world, one can see a crescendo, especially during the last 200 years, of a trend towards a ‘left-brain’ dominated society. In the early 20th century, Ideologies such as Fascism and the scientific movement known as ‘logical positivism’ come to mind. These are notorious examples of ‘chauvinistic’ or ‘left-brain’ ideologies.