Imagination: Episode 1

What makes human beings powerful is our imagination. Using only our minds, we can create with infinite variation. Imagination is the source of the arts, the discovery of the laws that govern the universe, empathy, reality, and the infinite questions of "How?" "Why?" and "What if?"

If I were to show the Mona Lisa to an octopus... See, I'm sure there was a very entertaining image in your head just now. My point being, that if an octopus were to look at the Mona Lisa it would mean absolutely nothing to it. We however, can recognize that it is a portrait of a human female. We can recognize the skill necessary to create it, and we can wonder what she is thinking about to make her quirk her mouth at us like that. We can then imagine a short blonde guy trying to explain how important the Mona Lisa is to an octopus and find the humor in it.

When I was little, and even now, I loved to lay on the grass and watch the clouds pass over me and find shapes in them. I used to think how cool God must be to spend time making these fluffy clouds into elephants just so kids like me could find them. I realize now that it is me who is creating these shapes. If I were to take the octopus to the park and have him look at the clouds, he would say "I don't know what you are talking about..." when I asked him if he could see the elephant in the clouds. In that same vein; constellations are bogus. I resent the drillings my scout master gave us on scorpio, draco, orion, and ursa minor. "Oh, over there? Umm... does it look kinda like a chicken?"

This was a crushed leaf on Kelsey and Lahdan's steps... Just a leaf, right?

To Be Continued...