Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I’ve spent the last two years exploring the question “what is the state of health of our collective imagination in 2019?”, and concluding that the answer is “in critical condition”.
Why are we failing at something that comes so naturally to us as children? Could it be that at this most critical point in our planet’s history, when all our resources and senses are required, that we are not well equipped at all? We’re so busy that there’s no time for our imaginative lives. Our imagination is actually shot to bits.
This chapter is about how we can start asking different questions – specifically questions that begin with ‘What if . . .’ and that help us unlock the imagination in service to the big challenges we face. It’s about more than the question per se, however.
It was a quote by my late friend and mentor David Fleming that tipped me over into thinking that writing a book about imagination was something I needed to do. In ‘Lean Logic’, he wrote “if the mature market economy is to have a sequel … it will be the work, substantially, of imagination”. There was something about that sentence that got under my skin.
The older I get, and I’m now 76, the more I think that the imagination, really, in a possibly never-able-to-be-described way, actually alters the world.
A National Imagination Act could have a key role to play in making that a reality. What would you do? How would you enable the imagination to flourish where you live, work, study? What if…
To me one of the most important things is mental sovereignty, is that you really think for yourself rather than be made small, be made constrained, by the narrowness of the dominant culture.
We have this remarkable ability as human beings to conjure things in our imaginations, and design them, when they’re not in evidence in front of us, but we can do that.
In Bologna, a new approach to engagement and civic action is emerging, rooted in the imagination. One driver for this shift is the realisation we are living in what Michele calls “a distrust era”, where people don’t trust public administrations, NGOs, or private businesses.
Storytelling is a powerful political tool. Becoming better storytellers has been shown to make a huge difference to the impact and efficacy of activist groups and campaigns.
We took everybody on a journey that said the arts too have their place in the life of a city, and that the city doesn’t just have to be about shopping and traffic, that it’s as important for people collectively to share these moments, moments like this, as it is for them to share or to experience moments in their own life.
The imagination needs the whole body and all the senses. Sitting still and having to pay attention and only use some of your senses, it gets kids out of the habit of feeling the world and themselves.
