There are strange theories about imagination. That it is located somewhere in the head. Maybe behind the forehead, somewhere between the left and right ear, just above the spot where you touch when you can't think of anything. Or in the heart, because... well, maybe because then it takes on something spiritual?
Terry Pratchett said “Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.”
I can relate to that, I would also say it is what makes us human. And of course I also have a curly theory about it:
imagination is not an internal affair. It doesn't sit obediently in the head waiting for us to activate it. It is not a function of the brain like digestion is a function of the stomach. No, imagination lives precisely at the boundary between the self and the world, where our thoughts touch the universe. It is the crack in reality through which new possibilities seep, the bridge between what is and what could be.
This theory means that it was not merely solving problems or collecting facts that made us the species Homo sapiens sapiens, but our ability to imagine something that does not (yet) exist. To make up stories. To see possibilities where others only see limitations.
And that is precisely what some people and systems fear.
Because imagination means change. It is the root of innovation, resistance and revolution. People who can imagine a different world are dangerous for those who profit from the existing one. “Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one none.” (Terry Pratchett – again, but I just can't put it more perfectly than he does) It's no coincidence that totalitarian regimes always try to control art first. That they rewrite narratives, ban books, stifle opinions. Because if you control someone's imagination, you control their future.
But what if you didn't just suppress the expressions of the imagination? What if you could cut off the source itself?
Imagine waking up one morning and realizing that you're still smart, still able to reason, still know how to do things – but you can't think of anything new. You can't come up with an idea that isn't based on something you already know. No new story, no crazy invention, no unexpected thought.
What would that feel like? Would it be like that feeling you get when a word is on the tip of your tongue but you just can't get hold of it? A sharp tingling sensation that you somehow can't grasp? Or more of a dull, numbed feeling, as if your thoughts are passing through cotton wool and you can't organize them properly? Does it feel like coldness spreading in your head, like an empty, paralyzing coldness settling on your thinking? Or is it more of a feeling of heaviness, as if your thoughts are just stumbling around inside you, unable to find a clear course?
At first, hardly anyone would notice. Everyday life would continue, routine actions would still function. But at some point... at some point the weight of the emptiness in your thoughts would become noticeable. A faltering in conversations. A lack of new ideas, of fresh impulses. A feeling that the world around you is slowing down a bit, as if the creativity that once kept it alive is simply no longer there. Only after weeks or months would it become clear: something is missing. Something has fallen silent.
And then what? A world in which everything stagnates, in which only the past is copied because no one can imagine a future? A society that never again comes up with the idea that things could be different? A civilization that imperceptibly but inexorably freezes itself? Sometimes I wonder if someone out there already knows the answer to this question. Someone who knows what it's like when people lose touch with the source of their imagination.
If this were a novel, I would say there's something behind it. Something that benefits from the fact that people are no longer able to think beyond their limitations. Something that benefits from keeping us within the confines it has set for us. Or has some kind of disaster occurred at some level of existence unknown to us?
If this were a novel, someone would be asking themselves right now: is this the first time something like this has happened? Or just the first time we've noticed?
But this isn't a novel.
Is it?
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