Imagination

[Mysterion]

Back in the '70s when I was in junior high school/high school my friends and I would literally spend hours drawing, writing, and just talking about all sorts of fantastic stuff. We'd just be making up things as we went along. Spacecraft, aliens, planets, governments, uniforms, characters, weird science-fantasies, etc.

Now, I find myself in my late forties wondering where all the imagination I had back then went to. I just seem to be unable to be quite that creative any more.

Is it just me? Did I not exercise that part of my brain enough, and it just faded out? Or have I just let the teevee spoonfeed my crap for too long and that killed my imagination off? I really want that part of myself back. I want to create stuff again.

Anyone else had this problem? What did you do about it?

Sorry if I sound a bit whiny here. Guess I've officially hit my "middle-age crazy" period.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I think younger people tend to be imaginative. In fact, I'd be surprised if I heard a kid or a teenager didn't daydream about sci-fi or fantasy-related stuff at least at some point in their lives.

When I was young, I liked to draw stuff a lot (even when my mom criticized the quality of my drawings). I guess I grew up in a different culture where parents could be so brutally honest sometimes. I remember even doing a comic book with my friends in school. Like the late Gene Roddenberry, I wasn't very athletic as a child, but my imagination surely took me places.

Even when I was a teenager, I would always come up with certain ideas and drawings. Although I have to admit, I was never artistically gifted. Sometimes I think about taking some art class (drawing) just for fun. You're never too old to learn, after all.

 

[Luckyflux]

Back in the '70s when I was in junior high school/high school my friends and I would literally spend hours drawing, writing, and just talking about all sorts of fantastic stuff. We'd just be making up things as we went along. Spacecraft, aliens, planets, governments, uniforms, characters, weird science-fantasies, etc.

Now, I find myself in my late forties wondering where all the imagination I had back then went to. I just seem to be unable to be quite that creative any more.

Is it just me? Did I not exercise that part of my brain enough, and it just faded out? Or have I just let the teevee spoonfeed my crap for too long and that killed my imagination off? I really want that part of myself back. I want to create stuff again.

Anyone else had this problem? What did you do about it?

Sorry if I sound a bit whiny here. Guess I've officially hit my "middle-age crazy" period.

You and me both. Not sure how or why, but people seem to lose their imagination as they age. I know it is happening to me. I used to be able to imagine all kinds of great stuff. Like if I sat in front of a huge plate of Legos.....I could build anything, and often times I would build *anything. Now when I my son in law plays with his legos, I struggle to think of something I want to build.

I guess when you are younger, you have experienced less failures, so you still have that youthful gusto?

 

[Capn Flukie]

Guess I've officially hit my "middle-age crazy" period.

Welcome to the club, bro!

 

[trekkiedane]

Like if I sat in front of a huge plate of Legos.....I could build anything, and often times I would build *anything. Now when I my son in law plays with his legos, I struggle to think of something I want to build.

I know that feeling

But I blame the useless forms the newer LEGOs have; I can barely find two pieces that fit together when I rummage around in my friends kids crates of it

 

[Amaris]

Back in the '70s when I was in junior high school/high school my friends and I would literally spend hours drawing, writing, and just talking about all sorts of fantastic stuff. We'd just be making up things as we went along. Spacecraft, aliens, planets, governments, uniforms, characters, weird science-fantasies, etc.

Now, I find myself in my late forties wondering where all the imagination I had back then went to. I just seem to be unable to be quite that creative any more.

Is it just me? Did I not exercise that part of my brain enough, and it just faded out? Or have I just let the teevee spoonfeed my crap for too long and that killed my imagination off? I really want that part of myself back. I want to create stuff again.

Anyone else had this problem? What did you do about it?

Sorry if I sound a bit whiny here. Guess I've officially hit my "middle-age crazy" period.

What happens is that every day life sucks it right out of you. People always telling you how to behave, what to do, where to go, conduct at work, at home, at church. The life and soul and creativity just get sucked away.


J.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, I don't think I've lost any imagination. I'm always working on my Stories and Poetry and Art and so forth whenever I have time. The problem is that the time becomes limited, and that work and other responsibilities use up a lot of mental energy. When you're a kid, you mostly don't have to worry about that stuff.

 

[WillsBabe]

I feel sorry that your imagination seems to have waned. I still have a fabulous imagination. I must admit that I don't use it to the extent that I used to when I was young - I don't write any longer, for example. But I still day dream a lot, and come up with story plots, and I really like making art in photoshop.

Mysterion, I wonder if it's more about opportunity than fading imagination. When we are younger we have motive an opportunity to be creative. As we get older much of our time is taken up with other things and our mental energies are spent elsewhere. I'm wondering if devoting a bit of time to your old hobbies might reignite your creativitity. They say about writing, for example, that you should just do it. Maybe all it will take is a bit of practise to get you back into that creative frame of mind?

What happens is that every day life sucks it right out of you. People always telling you how to behave, what to do, where to go, conduct at work, at home, at church. The life and soul and creativity just get sucked away.


J.

I think this has some truth to it. Best way to beat them is to get creative, unleash the imagination. Get creating some alternate reality in your own head! (I do this all the time!)

 

[captcalhoun]

i'm just as imaginative now as when i was a kid. i mean, i wrote ~100 Trek fan-fic stories in my late 20s and I've written an anthology of SF stories in the last 2 years.

i'm probably over-imaginative.

 

[Mysterion]

Thanks to all for the insightful comments/advice.

Guess I just need to sit down and write/create for myself and just try not to be self-conscious about it.

Thanks, again folks.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think as we get older our imaginations also tend to get bogged down by facts. When you're little, you don't know a whole lot about what is and isn't possible, so your imagination can take you anywhere. The smarter we get, the less we imagine because we know more about how things work.

 

[backstept]

I haven't done that much sketching or daydreaming lately . . . I think because I don't have any lectures to sit through
doodling helps me pay attention. if I sit and listen I get bored really fast, but if I doodle and listen the lecture or whatever has a much better chance of sticking with me
I guess I haven't been exercising my imagination as much as I used to because I'm mostly doing things I need to do instead of just sitting and listening like in school.

 

[Azlynn]

Dunno. I'm constantly making up stories, changing events, adding on to things I see... I think my imagination is as good as ever. What I've never been able to do is write it down.

 

[Triskelion]

I found this book helpful. Drawing is a skill that can be learned by anyone, and this book really helps you learn how to "see".

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ I'm glad that's still in print. I read it about twenty-five years ago and it was pretty good.

 

[Arrqh]

Imagination is like a muscle; if you don't use it then it atrophies. If you want to develop it you've gotta use it!

The smarter we get, the less we imagine because we know more about how things work.

I very much disagree. Imagination and creativity is important to so many technical fields... engineering, scientific research, the list goes on and on. It's simply being applied in different ways. Knowing more doesn't diminish imagination... it just gives you more specific (and potentially productive) ways to channel it.

On the other hand, we do a good job in our education system of quashing creativity... which really is hurting people's ability to be successful in today's world. It's really a shame.

 

[RJDiogenes]

If intelligence compromised imagination, there'd be no such thing as Science Fiction.

 

[Jadzia]

I think as we get older our imaginations also tend to get bogged down by facts. When you're little, you don't know a whole lot about what is and isn't possible, so your imagination can take you anywhere. The smarter we get, the less we imagine because we know more about how things work.

I think there is some truth there. There's such a strong rational influence on our mental processes, that people do temper their ideas with layers of realism out of habit.

As a result, people's creative and imaginative efforts will often end up looking like reality made stupid.

Creativity is often surreal. Surreal is like dreaming. Dreaming is imagination. These all fit together. In our dreams, the rational judgemental parts of our minds are inactive, so nothing seems unlikely. Dreams are not tempered by reason and realism.

As a result, dreams are often our best moments of creativity.

I think another factor is something in psychology called "crystallization". Which describes how our ideas and interpretations become refractory as we age. In contrast to this, "fluidic" mental states are where our ideas are readily malleable, such as in our childhood, where we allow ourselves to question and change our ways of thinking about things.

Imagination seems more congruent with fluidic minds, which offer greater mobility to forms of thought.

Perhaps also the trait of loose association would help to propel our thinking into more imaginative realms?

 

[iguana_tonante]

You know, Mysterion, I've been having the same feeling for some time, virtually about since I turned 30. I tried to put it on stress or whatever, but now I'm struggling to accept that maybe I'm getting "older" (I refrain to use the term "old").

In my case, it's not really a lack of imagination (I still have pretty wild thoughts ), but the lack of energy of putting them together. I used to write, to draw, to play my guitar. Now often I feel too tired and to stuffed to do something creative. I still enjoy art very much, but in a more passive way: reading instead of writing, watching a picture instead of drawing, listening to music instead of playing. I guess I just need to start smoking a pipe and I will become my grandfather.

I think as we get older our imaginations also tend to get bogged down by facts. When you're little, you don't know a whole lot about what is and isn't possible, so your imagination can take you anywhere. The smarter we get, the less we imagine because we know more about how things work.

I don't really agree with this. Knowledge is not impairing my imagination: if anything, it stimulates it! But I can't be arsed to put my thoughts and inspirations to fruition.

 

[Kirk's_Tights]

I have a very active imagination. I love it. Makes a dull day fun again.