I bought a new mechanical pencil a a while back. The is the package it came in said, ‘CREATE YOUR IMAGINATION’. My first thought was, Surely those wacky kids at Pentel meant ‘Create what you imagine’.
My next thought was, We DO create our imaginations.
We imagine by projecting from our existing knowledge and experiences. It just happens. But if you want your imagination to be different than it is, you can do it consciously.
Here are five things that I know work to change your imagination:
Improve and diversity your inputs.
Study the work of very imaginative people.
Do new creative things, even if you aren’t very good at them.
Write your dreams down when you first wake up.
In your mind, consciously mash things together that are completely unrelated (accounting and science fiction, tea ceremonies and sea turtle migrations, etc.) and see what happens.
Wolf Alice’s new album is good.
I’m making a medium-size announcement on Friday about TREE year six, which starts next week.
Grow slowly
Jeff