Playing Pretend Pays

On Mixonian's September 23 post, I wrote about grown-ups playing pretend....in a good way, of course. Playing pretend to exercise one's imagination and make life more interesting, not to escape responsibility. Exercising this resource can pay off in tangible dividends as well. Read on.

Since that post was published, research has surfaced that shows how pretending can actually pay off, in higher test scores, or possibly in investment dividends. Here is a true story on the power of imagination in ordinary people.

This account comes straight from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

Two Dutch researchers did a study in which they had groups of students answer forty-two fairly demanding questions from the board game 'Trivial Pursuit.' Half were asked to take five minutes beforehand to think about what it would mean to be a professor and write down everything that came to mind. Those students got 55.6% of the questions right. The other half of thes tudents were asked to first sit and think about soccer hooligans. They ended up getting 42.6% of the 'Trivial Pursuit' questions right. The "professor" group didn't know more than the "soccer hooligan" group. They weren't smarter or more focused or more serious. They were simply in a "smart" frame of mind, and clearly, associating themselves with the idea of something smart, like a professor, made it a lot easier -- in that stressful instant after a trivia question was asked -- to blurt out the right answer. The difference between 55.6% and 42.6%, it should be pointed out, is enormous. That can be the difference between passing and failing (56).

Far be it from Mixonian to question the validity of whether professors are really any smarter than soccer hooligans, but this study definitely supports the power of imagination to deliver real results.

The human imagination is a free unlimited resource at your disposal - the more you use it, the more it works for you. And this resource is safe from all financial economic crises.

Let's Play Pretend Today

Didn't you just love playing pretend when you were a kid? It's great fun being a princess or pirate for a while. Maybe you still do this. Or maybe your pretend muscles could use refreshing.

Pretending also stretches your imagination. And lest you worry about becoming delusional, well, consider this question. If a person thinks her life is better than it really is, is that such a bad thing? If someone thinks he looks better than he actually does, is that so dangerous? Now that you mention it, you probably know people like that.

What is it that turns you off about "overly confident" people? That's an excellent question. Mixonian had to get the lazy brain working on this one! Consider this possible answer.

Some people who appear to be confident, put others down, or make fun of them, but never laugh at themselves.

That is definitely not what Mixonian has in mind. The idea is to lighten up, not arrogant out.

Today, when I go to class to hear student speeches for three hours, I shall pretend to be the all-powerful magic queen, kind of like a good Jadet, who has the keys to the dungeon in her secret pocket. According to each student's presentation, I will decide his/her fate: the cold dark dungeon to be taught remedial grammar by a dwarf, or freedom.

Now that's an interesting day's work!

Find Life's Hidden Meanings

"In times when passions are beginning to take charge of the conduct of human affairs, one should pay less attention to what men of experience and common sense are thinking than to what is preoccupying the imagination of dreamers" -- Alexis de Toqueville in Democracy in America.

I have an e-friend, that means we haven't actually met but we took a wonderful e-course together, Great Big Dreams, in the spring with Christine Kane. Her name is Marcia and she strongly recommended this book to our group, The Three Only Things (yes, I know it's got a really odd title.) I am so glad she did because it is not something I would ordinarily read, but I am enjoying it immensely!

The book's subtitle is "Tapping to power of dreams, coincidence, and imagination." The author, Robert Moss, is also a novelist, a history professor and a foreign news correspondent. My kind of Renaissance guy.

This book is about irrational, or supernatural messages that may come to us in the form of dreams (remember the story about Joseph and the fat cows and the skinny cows?,) or seemingly random encounters. In essence, his work validates the notion, when you're ready to learn, the teacher will appear. If you have a question, the answer will come, but maybe not in the form you expected. He gives such interesting examples from a variety of times and cultures.

One incredible example came from the life history of Winston Churchill. Our image of this man is the perfect statesman, who rallied the British to such courage during World War II. Well, it turns out this man was addicted to flying small planes, not the safest of past times, especially in the early twentieth century. His wife, Clemmie, was desperate for him to stop flying, especially when she was pregnant with their third child. It was not, however, until she had a really spooky dream, not about flying but about their baby, that he promised to stop flying, at least until the child was born. That was in 1914 (90-91).

If you are an admirer of Carl Jung's work, you will particularly enjoy this delightful book. I'll soon have a direct link, but in the meantime, just click on any of the book covers below on the side to order it from Amazon.

Imagination Rocks

While searching for a particular quote in the book, Orthodoxy, by English wit G.K. Chesterton, I ran across this lovely writing on true imagination:

There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them.

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom (16-17).

More power to the imagination; the magnet that attracts us to the good life.

Care for Your Imagination

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -- Albert Einstein

Don't take it from me, Einstein valued imagination more than knowledge. This purpose of this post is to encourage you to take tender loving care of your own imagination. What you appreciate, will appreciate (as in its value!)

Think about this. Everything around us was first an idea. Take the shirt you have on, well, let's take the shirt I have on. More than 10 years ago, someone who works for Izod envisioned a line of long-sleeved cotton t-shirts. And this person particularly pictured one in black. And I'm wearing it and enjoying it today.

Even the food you eat was grown and processed a certain way because of some farmers imagined a non-existent harvest first. Everything used to be grown organically and no one ever gave it a second thought. I don't think the Pilgrims said to each other, "Hey, let's move to that colony -- so we can grow everything organically!" Today we value this mode of production so much that we pay a premium for "organic" produce. Imagination precedes creation, and re-creation.

A certain confidence is required to imagine that things could be different, or imagine things that don't yet exist. To flourish, your imagination needs intentional support from you, protection from danger, nourishment, and rest. Maybe your imagination needs a break from electronic media. Feed it some poetry and gardening. Imagine the possibilities.