When I joined the Walt Disney World College Program in 2012, I was assigned a custodial position at Saratoga Springs and Old Key West. I worked at a couple of the other resorts, but these were my home base where I spent most of my time. By far, my favorite place to work was Old Key West. No matter how few people there were, I always had a great soundtrack for my workday, and on the playlist were several Jimmy Buffett songs. These are three of my favorites from Jimmy Buffett after listening to more of his music. (This article contains affiliate links. If you order through these links, you support this work, and it doesn’t cost anything extra. Thank you.)
Continue readingTag Archives: imagination
Defy or Fire Up the Imagination: Tip Tuesday
In the “Go-Giver” (affiliate link) and several of the business gurus’ advice videos and self-help guides, one of the first pieces of advice you get is to provide more value than what you take in. At first glance, this means to avoid making money. After all, if you provide more than what a person pays for, you’re going to go bankrupt. However, what you’re really doing is providing people with what they need to achieve their goals or fulfill their needs in a better way. If you can do this genuinely and organically, you’ll find that you have a rabid fan base, who will help you succeed. To start, you need to defy or fire up the imagination.
Continue readingHow to Improve Your Imagination Using Your Fridge
The first step to becoming more creative is believing you can, and the basis of all creativity starts with imagination. If you don’t believe you have an imagination ask yourself what your parents put on the fridge that you did. My mom put up my artwork and my poetry, no matter how bad it was because she wanted to recognize the effort and work that I put into creating something. She wasn’t interested in the quality; she was interested in allowing her child to grow. She even put up the only test that I ever flunked because I put work into flunking it. It felt good to have those things on the fridge and to see them every time I grabbed the milk for a bowl of cereal. It kept me in the habit of being creative. Use these tools and learn how to improve your imagination using your fridge.
Continue readingHow to Improve Imagination through Childhood Memories: Build a Fort
What is Innovation? It’s the implementation of creative ideas. What is creativity? It is the generation of new ideas. This means that innovation is built on creativity. What is creativity built on? It is built on the tripod of imagination, subject matter expertise, and general knowledge. If you want to be more creative, first you have to believe that you can be more creative. This often rests on establishing that you have an imagination and then learning how to improve imagination. Too many people say they aren’t imaginative or creative. It’s time to harness your imagination and bring your creativity to the world.
Continue readingImprove Your Imagination for Greater Creativity: Hot Lava Monster
The first step to greater creativity is believing that you are creative and you can become more creative. Many people have had their creativity beaten out of them. Schools and workplaces rarely reward creativity because creative people are disruptive in the classroom and often fail because they are trying something new. Creativity is attacked on two levels: the imagination and the actual creation. If you think you have no imagination, read on to improve your imagination.
Continue reading‘Anne of Green Gables,’ ‘Anne of Avonlea’ Improve Imagination and Compassion
(Note: This review contains affiliate links; if you make a purchase using the affiliate links, I get a commission. You still pay the same rate you would without using the link) In the same vein as “Winnie the Pooh” and “A Christmas Carol,” “Anne of Green Gables” and “Anne of Avonlea” are stories that everyone should take the time to read and savor. The two books are full of melodrama, comedy, tragedy and the daydreams and love of a young girl and here neighbors. Here, everyone is accepted for who they are, even if they all have their faults.
Continue readingWhat Is a Stuffed Animal?
A stuffed animal isn’t just a toy that sits on the shelf alone. It’s a series of stories that unfold over time. It is surrounded by friends, and central to the friend group is the person who has adopted the stuffed animal and its friends.
Stuffed animals can spark the imagination. They allow the person to create stories around the group interaction. These stories help the person deal with situations that may be painful or confusing. These stories may also help the person find a place in the world.
Each animal in the group will have its own personality: the confidante, the antagonist, the shy one… The imagination soars with each new story that the stuffed animal inspires and becomes a part of.
Our handmade stuffed penguins are built to last and made to be cuddly, warm and friendly. Our sincerest hope is that, as the person grows, our penguins will be there to listen, to provide playful encouragement and to be a friend for a lifetime of memories.
Children know the power and pleasure of stuffed animals. If you’ve forgotten, let our penguins help guide you back to childhood and all the wonder it can bring. If you haven’t forgotten or you have a child in your life who needs a soft friend, our penguins make the perfect gift. Find the penguin that is right for you or a friend and embrace your inner child.
Episode 9: ‘The Twilight Zone’ Perchance to Dream
Charles Beaumont’s first episode for “the Twilight Zone” explores the power of the imagination. It’s main question: “Could someone imagine him- or herself to death?”
The mind is undoubtedly powerful. It creates much of our reality. Self-fulfilling prophecies, the placebo effect, the law of attraction, “If you can dream it, you can do it…” These are the ways the mind bends reality.
When the psychiatrist’s new patient shows up in his office, the patient is concerned and facing a catch-22. If he goes to sleep, his dreams will deliver him a shock his heart can’t withstand; if he stays awake much longer, his heart will give out. He tells the doctor that the doctor won’t be able to help him. The patient has already made up his mind, all that’s left is for his body to figure out how to fulfill the reality the patient sees.
The same is true in our lives. How we think of something is what it becomes, and we can imagine both good and bad things. When someone doesn’t call you, do you imagine something like a car wreck or do you think his or her phone has run out of battery power? If it’s the first, they may not be in an accident, but your body reacts in the same way as if that person had experienced something terrible. You face worry and stress even if nothing has happened. Removing worry from the equation is hard, but if you can achieve it and face reality as it comes, you’ll be healthier and happier.
The NeverEnding Story: The Great and Terrible Power of the Imagination
In 1984, “the NeverEnding Story” posited that human imagination was being destroyed by a power that brought “the Nothing” on Fantasia. The hench-Gmork doesn’t reveal the power that is behind him before Atreyu kills him. Fantasia is saved by the wishes and imagination of one little boy and his Luck Dragon.
How would it fair now when the dark side of the imagination is called upon to foster fear and create lies? Imagination is a double-edged sword. For as much as someone can imagine all the good things that can happen, it is easier and far more likely for people to imagine all of the bad things that could happen. You can imagine being rich and poor, but what do you imagine more often?
Imagination is a tool that you can harness or let run wild. You have to choose the scenarios that you will give power over your life. The more you think about the bad things, the more power they will have. The more you think about the good, the more power they will gain, and each will manifest itself in Fantasia and in your life.
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A Question of Imagination
You can’t imagine anything you haven’t already seen. If the imagination is the combining element of the human brain, then it stands to reason that if there’s nothing to combine, you cannot imagine it. I read about an experiment where scientists asked people to draw an alien. They could draw the alien however they wanted, but it should be as different from life on Earth as possible. The people that were asked to draw these aliens still created creatures with legs, arms, eyes, and/or mouths. Some made amoeba like creatures. At least one left the page blank and said we couldn’t see it. Regardless of the instructions, people couldn’t imagine life on another planet without referencing life here on Earth.
So, it’s your turn. Grab a sheet of paper and draw an alien that looks a different as possible from anything on Earth. Go ahead. I’ll wait. (I mean, seriously, as long as you bookmark this page, you can always come back and find this article and continue reading after you’ve drawn your alien.)
After thinking about this for the past couple of days, I gave it a go. I tried to draw an alien that doesn’t look like anything we have on Earth. It’s difficult because of the diversity of life on Earth. It’s also difficult because the creature is designed out of context. What type of planet does it live on? How does it survive? How does it experience the universe?
It’s difficult enough for us to imagine how other life here on Earth experiences the universe. What our dogs and cats thinking about? Is it just ball, ball, food, master, and food, sleep, sleep, food, servant? I know my cat dreams, but what is she dreaming about? Those are our domesticated pets. Put us in the alien environment of water and we just think fish are stupid, or we use excuses about how all animals are to be dominated by mankind. We don’t empathize with creatures we consider below us, and that’s true for people to.
If you weren’t born into poverty, it’s probably pretty difficult for you to imagine what it’s like to be poor. “Let them eat cake if there’s no bread.” “Why don’t they just get a car and drive to work?” “They’re all lazy and don’t want to work hard.” Poor people are often seen as something less than human by the people in the socioeconomic sphere above them, and it makes it difficult to empathize with someone who can’t afford their medication, doctor’s treatment, rent or food. “They should get a job” even if they’re already working three jobs. “They should get an education,” even if they are already working three jobs. “They shouldn’t have kids if they can’t afford them.” Seriously, who can afford kids? The hospital bill alone for a newborn without complications is enough to put me off my tea.
There are ways to fix the problem of a lack of empathy. Reading books is a start. Watching documentaries could help. After all, a lot of people can empathize with the rich because that’s what they see on television, in films and in music videos. Get experiences that are vastly different than your regular life through volunteering – at a soup kitchen, at a shelter, with an outreach group. Start seeing other human beings as being the same species as you and seek out to engage with them.
This is one way to begin improving your imagination. You can imagine a horse flying because you’ve seen horses and things that fly. You’ve seen things that float, so you can imagine a horse flying in that way. It’s not a big leap to think of a horse jumping and missing the ground. It’s gone back centuries. Once you can imagine a horse flying, you can imagine anything else flying. However, to bring something into being that you have no way of imagining is impossible. Whether for art or for life, you have to start with a base of knowledge before you can use your imagination to create something new and hopefully better. Leave your alien in the comments below or share it on Facebook and Twitter #penguinate.
For more on creativity, get “Disneyland Is Creativity.” Order “Penguinate! Essays and Short Stories.” Preorder “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”
Penguinate! Positive Creativity 