It’s Friday evening and the kids are sitting at the kitchen island waiting for the kettle to whistle. We are making Ultimate Hot Chocolates. It’s hot chocolate and marsh mellows topped with cool whip and covered in sprinkles. With all those sugary ingredients, you can guess why it’s a favorite in our house.
Waiting for a kettle to boil is painful for three children. It ranks right up there with getting a flu shot. Eric (8) is complaining, “How much longer.” Beth (3) keeps reaching for the toppings, forcing me to move them to higher ground. Only Emily (5) is quiet.
I watch her guide a pink stuffed pony through the air, as if the plush animal is flying. “What are you doing, Honey Bee?” I ask.
“I’m making up a new language.” She says.
Eric rolls his eyes. “Emily.” He says with a hint of frustration in his voice. “You can’t make a language with a flying pony.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Mom.” He rolls his eyes at me. “You need words to make a language.”
“What about sign language?” I ask. Eric, however, doesn’t have a response. Instead, he tries to divert the conversation back to Emily.
“But sign language is real.” He argues. “She’s just making this up.”
For the next few minutes, I try to explain to Eric how important imagination is. I tell him about Star Trek. I tell him how the creators of the show imagined a time when people carried tiny little communications devices in their pockets. Then I hold up my cell phone.
“See, this phone.” I say. “It wouldn’t have been possible without imagination.”
Imagination, in my opinion, is more important that smarts. It’s more important than money. It’s more important than strength. Imagination sets humans apart from the other beasts. (Well, that and a soul.) The force of imagination led early humans to build studier shelters to protect them from the elements. The force of imagination led the same humans to see what might happen when they cooked the catch of the day in a fire. Without imagination, we’d still be living in caves, killing buffalo with pointy sticks and then eating the raw flesh.
Imagination led Wilbur and Orville Wright to a sandy beach in North Carolina where they invented the first airplane. Imagination led Karl Benz to create the first gasoline powered automobile.
Imagination is responsible for putting a man on the moon. Imagination is responsible for launching the Titanic. Imagination spurs on the development of the Space Shuttle. Imagination is the reason man created the atomic bomb. Imagination created clocks, calendars and computers.
Imagination is the reason the Pilgrims boarded the May Flower. Imagination explains the reason settlers flocked from the safety of the cities to explore the great expanse of the west. Imagination prompted Robert Perry to press on to the North Pole.
Imagination wrote the works of Shakespeare. It directed Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Imagination invented Bananas Foster, Baked Alaska and Crème Brule. Imagination spurred on Saturday Night Live. Whether it’s the chair you sit on or the pen you write with, it wouldn’t exist without imagination.
Imagination is one of the most powerful forces in the world.
Yet, curiously, if you look at school curriculum throughout the country, there is not a single class on “imagination.” We stress reading. We push writing. We advocate for arithmetic. Yet never do we say to our school board, how much of the budget do you plan to dedicate to the fine art of imagination?
I wonder, what will happen if we continue to take our imagination for granted? And I fear what the answer may be.
A few days pass and I am sitting in the kitchen. I hear Eric in the family room. He’s holding a space ship built out of Legos and making “vrooooom” noises. I glance over at him and our eyes meet.
“Whatcha doing, bud?” I ask with a smile.
Eric rushes over to me. “Mom, guess what. I know what I want to be when I grow up.” I lean forward on my elbows. This ought to be good. “What’s that?”
“I’m going to design life sized Darth Vader space ships made out of Legos. Ones that fly for real.”
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