In a radio conversation between a fiction writer and a computer scientist,the scientist asked the author: do you find that your characters sometimes begin to tell you what to do with them in your writing? The author replied: oh, yes, and thank God when that happens. It’s when some of my best writing happens! Why do you ask? The scientist replied: because, there are times when the negative and positive particles of a project I am working on begin to suggest a solution that I had never thought of. There is no other way to explain it, but those are always the best solutions. . . it’s as if an end is drawing us toward itself. I have no other word than “transcendence” to explain this.
Sometimes we simply have no words to describe the subtle and interior experiences that we have. These kinds of experiences are shaping, guiding and changing us. A recent study done at Emory University demonstrates how reading a fiction novel changes the brains of those reading. Their brains change the same way that the brain does when engaged in the actual activities that the participants simply read about. The study even says that the MRI shows that the reader enters the body of the novel’s protagonist!
Our imaginations are powerful. When we face challenges we do have this resource, this gift of imagination that allows us the ability of birthing new possibilities for ourselves and in our relationships. What could happen if we added to the way we deal with difficulties, this: a little time to sit and ponder. “I wonder how this would look and feel if . . .”
I think that we are more powerful than we realize. I sometimes think that we are actually children always playing in the sandbox of Being. What we create is most often limited only by our imaginations.
Bob Patrick
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Wow! Thanks for reminding me of the power of our imagination. Love this post today, Bob.