Writing and the imagination

Short note: Agreed but you have to gain knowledge to grow an excess of imagination. First things first.

Writers often joke about their imagination, saying it is like hearing voices, having imaginary friends or (in extreme cases of hyperbole) they say they must be a touch schizophrenic. This isn't the case at all as you can see from the medical definitions below. The jokes are just jokes and hyperbole, hyperbole.

Hearing voices
Auditory hallucinations are "Illusory auditory perception of strange nonverbal sounds. Illusory perception; a common symptom of severe mental disorder."

Imaginary friends

"Imaginary friends and imaginary companions are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship or other interpersonal relationship takes place in the imagination rather than external physical reality. Imaginary friends are fictional characters created for improvisational role-playing. They often have elaborate personalities and behaviors. They seem real but are ultimately unreal to their creators, as shown by studies.

Imaginary friends are made often in childhood, sometimes in adolescence, and rarely in adulthood. They often function as tutelaries when played with by a child. They reveal, according to several theories of psychology, a child's anxieties, fears, goals and perceptions of the world through that child's conversations. They are, according to some children, physically indistinguishable from real people, while others say they see their imaginary friends only in their heads."

Schizophrenia
"Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder (or a group of disorders) marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviours. Schizophrenic patients are typically unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have enhanced perceptions of sounds, colours, and other features of their environment. Most schizophrenics, if untreated, gradually withdraw from interactions with other people, and lose their ability to take care of personal needs and grooming."


All jokes aside, I do find cause to be interested in the level and type of imagination of anyone in the arts. Painting, sculpture, drawing, sewing, design, architecture, writing, choreography, fashion etc etc demand a level of imagination above what is required in your average office job. That is not to say imagination isn't required in most jobs, just that the level is different. I have experienced the deep seated boredom that comes from try to curb the imagination for routine and cannot conceive on anyone who simply has to follow their imagination being happy in such positions. Imagining potential results from a certain action but not imagining anything further is tedious and limited. Not day dreaming freely is impossible. Not day dreaming in brilliant colour, complexity and high emotion is like eating dry biscuits without topping or a drink. Blah.

So what do you call this excess of imagination and artfulness? What is it to create imaginary worlds and delve into them so much that returning to reality is a shock? What does it mean when a person without obvious mental disorders of any sort can easily joke that they do simply because of an excess of imagination?

So here is a start.

Imagination
"Etymology: L, imaginare, picture to oneself
1 the ability to form, or the act or process of forming, mental images or conscious concepts of things that are not immediately available to the senses.
2 (in psychology) the ability to reproduce images or ideas stored in the memory by the stimulation or suggestion of associated ideas or to regroup former ideas and concepts to form new images and ideas concerned with a particular goal or problem. See also fantasy."

Artistic
"1. Of or relating to art or artists: the artistic community.
2. Sensitive to or appreciative of art or beauty: an artistic temperament.
3. Showing imagination and skill: an artistic design."

Create
"tr.v. cre·at·ed, cre·at·ing, cre·ates
1. To cause to exist; bring into being. See Synonyms at found¹.
2. To give rise to; produce: That remark created a stir.
3. To invest with an office or title; appoint.
4. To produce through artistic or imaginative effort: create a poem; create a role."

Temperament
"1. a. The manner of thinking, behaving, or reacting characteristic of a specific person: a nervous temperament. See Synonyms at disposition.
b. The distinguishing mental and physical characteristics of a human according to medieval physiology, resulting from dominance of one of the four humors.
2. Excessive irritability or sensitiveness: an actor with too much temperament.
3. Music Equal temperament."

Disposition
"1. One's usual mood; temperament: a sweet disposition.
2. a. A habitual inclination; a tendency: a disposition to disagree.
b. A physical property or tendency: a swelling with a disposition to rupture.
3. Arrangement, positioning, or distribution: a cheerful disposition of colours and textures; a convoy oriented into a north-south disposition.
4. A final settlement: disposition of the deceased's property.
5. An act of disposing; a bestowal or transfer to another.
6. a. The power or liberty to control, direct, or dispose.
b. Management; control."

None of these really shed light on why such levels of imagination vary but they do highlight that there isn't any particular link to mental disorders in just having an excessive imagination.

So is it linked to intelligence? I have to ask as many would claim this to be so. Personally, although both are connected I don't think that imagination is limited to the arts alone or that it is the only aspect of the mind that indicates a person has high intelligence. Still, I must cover this too.

Intelligence
"1. a. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
b. The faculty of thought and reason.
c. Superior powers of mind. See Synonyms at mind.
2. An intelligent, incorporeal being, especially an angel.
3. Information; news. See Synonyms at news.
4. a. Secret information, especially about an actual or potential enemy.
b. An agency, staff, or office employed in gathering such information.
c. Espionage agents, organisations, and activities considered as a group: "Intelligence is nothing if not an institutionalised black market in perishable commodities" (John le Carré).""

As instructed, here is the mind definition

Mind
'1. The human consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.
2. The collective conscious and unconscious processes in a sentient organism that direct and influence mental and physical behaviour.
3. The principle of intelligence; the spirit of consciousness regarded as an aspect of reality.
4. The faculty of thinking, reasoning, and applying knowledge: Follow your mind, not your heart.
5. A person of great mental ability: the great minds of the century.
6. a. Individual consciousness, memory, or recollection: I'll bear the problem in mind.
b. A person or group that embodies certain mental qualities: the medical mind; the public mind.
c. The thought processes characteristic of a person or group; psychological makeup: the criminal mind.
7. Opinion or sentiment: He changed his mind when he heard all the facts.
8. Desire or inclination: She had a mind to spend her vacation in the desert.
9. Focus of thought; attention: I can't keep my mind on work.
10. A healthy mental state; sanity: losing one's mind."

Intelligence and the mind are defined without restrictions to excessive imagination but there is cause to link the two. To be imaginative you need a certain level of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory and imagination along with consciousness of your consciousness, reflectiveness, thinking, reasoning and application of knowledge. You can be imaginative in maths or any of the sciences as well as imaginative in writing or any of the other arts. To excel in any field requiring imagination to create and reform ideas of any sort requires an excess of imagination.

And still there is no answer, just a validation of why the imaginative choose the jobs they are often in.

Why is there ever an excess of imagination?
This likely comes down to evolution.

Evolution
1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. See Synonyms at development.
2. a. The process of developing.
b. Gradual development.
3. Biology a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
b. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.
4. A movement that is part of a set of ordered movements.
5. Mathematics The extraction of a root of a quantity.

Very, very simply put:
We are creatures without deadly defences, a specific food source or any sort of instinctual hunting strategies. We are soft creatures who survive because we are adapted to constant adaption of our behaviour to our environment (so much so we often adapt the environment to our behaviour). To constantly adapt behaviour means to constantly think of new ways of doing things and then enacting them, some to fail and some to succeed. To fail to imagine a new way of doing things could lead a person to meet with death. The losses pare away some of the imaginative along with the unimaginative but not all. Sometimes the unimaginative restrict the imaginative leading to losses happening all round.

Build on that over thousands of years and imagination becomes a dominant trait, leaving most of us with some predisposition towards making up stuff on the fly. For those that don't, well, we are a pack animal remember. Within our close circles we love and care for our fellows and within the wide community we condemn acts of violence (not to say we don't often act violently, just that the vast majority of us try hard to suppress it and make sure we don't kill anyone, thus becoming natural selectors in evolution). There isn't much of a problem with not being imaginative at all (a rare condition indeed) as long as you are loved and are careful.

So imagination, intelligence, survival and evolution are all linked to various degrees to someone sitting down at a computer or scribbling on a pad of paper in the process of creating and recording fictitious worlds, characters and societies, which doesn't seem to benefit anyone much until you realise that this is one of the main ways ideas are transferred and recorded (no matter if the idea is couched in fiction or non-fiction). We could keep living without excessive imagination but I doubt we'd develop as nicely (evolve is too linked to progress and progress is too linked to betterment and that isn't always the case with imagination now is it). Excessive imagination allows us to develop and build/alter/pare away methods much quicker and is the reason behind why society is moving oh so very fast nowadays.

Word puzzles, you and your brain

Word puzzles come in a variety of formats. You have your basic crossword, Find A Word, Scrabble, various letter arrangement games like Jumble or Boggle, Hangman, Charades, Fictionary, Anagram, Spelling Bee, Spoonerisms and many more. Then there is the Wheel of Fortune and Countdown.

There are people out there who can play all these games quite well, easily pulling on a large base of trivia and knowledge of the English language.

Then there is the average person who is good at several of them but not so good at the others, finding competition hard, their knowledge a little less than desired or their grasp of English good but not fantastic.

And finally there are those who struggle with all of these games, likely due to English being their second language, learning difficulties or reading and writing difficulties, a disregard for general trivia and any number of other factors that impede a person's ability to engage and puzzle out the answers.

Now here is what I'm interested in. Not what level you're at if you always perform about the same when playing these games. No, what I'm interested in is why you could be classed as a mix of two or three of these levels, depending on the game you are playing.

The brain is an organ but its function isn't simple and its growth and maturing isn't ever going to occur in the same way for multiple people. On a macroscopic level it generally all looks about the same, except for size or growth stage. On a microscopic level you will find the connections made between neurons will be as individual as fingerprints (or so the saying goes). This does not mean your neurons have free reign in connecting however they want, basic brain structure be damned. This means that when the sections of the brain mature the neurons within each section create connections according to the information an individual needs to be processed, what that person perceives, how the person goes about developing motor control, what excites/aggravates the person, the person's developing urges/impulses and desires, how the person learns to regulate the environment and their own functions, as well as the need to remember and learn particular things in order to survive/pass tests/function in society. 

So if everyone is an individual, their brain and their knowledge base different then everyone's ability to access the language, recognise and decode patterns, experiment with patterns, recall and respond, analyse, compete or fight, remain calm when stressed, liken two or more items together, draw parallels, predict or even see, move or speak will be different.

You may find that while you are exceptionally good at hangman that you can't see words in a Find A Word because it all looks like scribbles swimming before your eyes. This could be because of your vision being poor or it could be because your brain isn't wired to 'see' the patterns, 'seeing' the texture or colour or blocks instead. You can train your brain to some extent but if it can't be done then it can't be done. You have to live with what you are, whether you like it or not. Best to try and like it.

That's just one example but the same principle applies for other combinations.

Why I'm interested in this is because I could be labelled one of the ones who fall into different categories depending on the game being played. This isn't because I'm of low intelligence, dysfunctional, have a learning difficulty or anything else. I'd be classed your average ordinary to intelligent person who functions well, though with some social problems re figuring out what to say in general conversations as opposed to arguments or discussions (does this explain something to some of you?), in the world and has a good practical knowledge of a lot of different subjects, if not so good on general trivia such as sports and other topics I consider completely irrelevant to living my life.

For me, who can read, write, speak and learn without an excuse as to why I might fail, I find it quite frustrating that my mind will not always do what I intend it to or hope it will. As a result, scrabble is daunting with live players but okay with computers, hangman has to be played with a person and always goes over well, I'm fantastic at Find A Word but my brain often stalls when searching for answers to crosswords (especially when I know I know the bleeding answer and it is just there but I can't spit it out) only to find the answer logged in my memory a day later, all trivia games are a waste of time unless they include a random challenge topic which I will find easy while the rest of the questions sound like random words stuck together. I can play Boggle but when the letters are written I suddenly struggle. Explain that one for me! Totally irrational.

And here I am stringing sentences using formulas drawn from repeated patterns I read over and over rather than by having someone sit me down and plug grammar into my brain. Spelling, yes. I had plenty of spelling lessons, just not any on grammar past “This is a full stop” and “This is a comma”.

But totally irrational isn't far from what the brain is at times. Well, the conscious part anyway. Well, the unconscious too. Yes, the brain can be just plain ridiculous at times. At least it isn't all the time.

Conclusion: We each learn, adopt, adapt and function in our own ways, saying that is what makes us individual. We accept that we each have our own skills and failings, some obvious and some not. We work hard to accept others as we are pack animals by nature and the need to belong to a group is strong. To belong we accept many things we otherwise might not. Please apply this acceptance of individuality to your own and others' ability to perform not just in such things as word games but also in everything. Try not to go calling people or yourself an idiot for not being able to do something no matter how hard you try. I bet you're good at something else instead.

Truth and fiction in writing

When you study history you find out that absolute truth does not exist in writing. All texts portray the subjective viewpoint of the author. Truth, as in absolute truth, is rarely written and in fact may not be possible to write except for in grand instances. This is a problem that occurs because people's minds do not recall details perfectly, agendas come into play and bias twists perspective. This is also why the study of history will never stop, not just because history keeps being created.

So when truth is written as truth you need to be aware that it often contains fiction or bald falsehoods, depending on the intent. Writers should try to be objective or at least place a disclaimer of sorts on their non-fiction works so that the reader has at least some confidence in what is written or doesn't place too much. Purposely misleading readers by disseminating misinformation is the same as a politician lying to his constituents. This might sound harsh but writers spreading falsehoods on purpose only do so for a reason, whether that be money, fame, gratitude, empowerment, safety or other rewards. Much as what a politician would. The politician example isn't the only one applicable here. Big businessmen have been known to do so, often destroying the livelihoods of others in the process.

In writing fiction the reverse can be said. No matter the genre; crime, fantasy, science-fiction, romance, historical or literature, there is always truth included within the text. Truth appears in the character's emotions, reactions, desires, fears, faults and flaws. It appears in the base understandings of the world's structure and all within it, because even when a fantasy world is written only a few elements of the real world is distorted to create the fictional one. Utopian and dystopian literature reflect our fears and desires. Futuristic literature often explores problems and issues in our current society projected forward.

Truth and fiction go hand in hand. One never appears in writing without the other. If writing non-fiction, it is the responsibility of the author to make sure what is written is as accurate to the truth as possible. This is not always done so it is also the responsibility of the reader to question everything and not allow other people to pull the wool over their eyes without a fight. If writing fiction, it is the responsibility of the author to reference other people's works, to work in a many that doesn't bring liable and to not use fiction to promote dangerous causes. Affiliating oneself with an ideology or political encampment is fine but inciting others to violence (or any other detrimental action) for a cause, no matter the method, is illegal and aside from that, immoral.

It is a difficult maze to navigate at times but that is what it means to write. Words have immense power and should be handled responsibly, not thrown around as though whatever is written can be fobbed off as meaning nothing. Writing is a heritage of our evolution and has been increasingly important in the survival of humanity for it relays ideals, records developments and mistakes and because of its long history of use what is written is often seen as incredibly reliable. Sometimes despite our better judgement.

So write remembering that what you say and portray is important and can impress your ideas upon another quite strongly (no matter the format you've chosen). Try to build upon the integrity of our written language, not degrade it.