We have all probably heard the story of Prometheus.
How he stole the fire from heaven.
He stole the first of the gods.
Perhaps, if we want to understand
the nature of that fire
we should perhaps have a look at the name Prometheus.
"Pro" means before.
"-metheus" is a variation of the word for thought.
So, "before thought."
To think about something before it's happened
or potentially to think about things
that are never going to happen.
So, in short, that's imagination.
Imagination is one of the most valuable
precious metals that a writer can mine.
It is absolutely essential.
Even if you're just writing about factual things
if you're writing historical books
if you're writing about things in the well known past
you are going to need an imagination.
You are going to be able to think yourself into that world
into that part, into that role.
So, what is imagination
and how do we foster an ability to deal with it?
People have suggested various things.
I remember reading a book
by the theorist and writer Douglas R Hofstadter
who did a book called Metamagical Themas.
And in it, he was talking about a friend of his
who'd suggested a possible way of looking at the imagination.
This friend had gone to a restaurant one Friday night
and it was very crowded.
The friend had said
"Boy, I'd hate to be a waitress in here tonight."
So, what the friend had done
if we imagine that any situation
has parameter dials, things that you could adjust.
You can adjust details of the parameters of the situation.
Now, in this case that Douglas Hofstadter cited
his friend had adjusted two dials.
For some reason, he'd adjusted the gender dial
so that he was now a female.
And he'd also adjusted his social role
so that instead of being a customer at the restaurant
he was now somebody who was employed by the restaurant
a woman, a waitress.
Now, Hofstadter was saying that that is in itself
a creative act.
You have altered the parameters of reality and made a new story.
Not a particularly interesting one, I admit.
But he was saying that this is how
a lot of art and writing gets created.
For example, if we take Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
and we adjust the parameters of time and place
then we've pretty much got West Side Story.
Adjust them in a different way, you'll have a different story.
There are ways of stimulating the imagination
prompts, if you like.
I remember a wonderful book by Iain Sinclair, Downriver
in which he has a sequence
where he has obviously gone to a junk shop
he's sorted through the boxes
of antique photographs and postcards
and he'd bought a bunch of 19th-century postcards
that, to him, they seemed to suggest
a kind of colonial narrative.
Pictures of natives
pictures of what looked like Dutch colonialists.
And Iain put together a story from these postcards
which is like a different version
or an alternate version
of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
This is just from postcards found in a junk shop.
Another way of giving yourself an imaginative jolt
or a piece of inspiration
would be perhaps come from
something like Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.
In, I think, about 1975
they brought out a box of cards
which they referred to as Oblique Strategies.
On each of these cards, there is an instruction written.
Sometimes they are relatively simple instructions
sometimes they are unfathomable or ambiguous.
The idea is that any artist or writer or musician
who is involved in the creative processes
will sooner or later reach a point
where they are absolutely stuck.
Where something has gone wrong.
Where nothing that they do
to try and dig themselves out of the hole
seems to satisfy them.
And Eno suggested that this was because
when we are unable to find a solution for a thing
instead of trying something new, we will try variations
upon the solution, which still won't work
because we've fallen into a rut in our thinking.
And the idea of the Oblique Strategy cards
was to derail our thinking to a degree
to shift us out of our rut
into a new way of looking at things.
This doesn't always work
but I've found it has worked enough in my own experience
to make this a very useful tool.
The imagination is endless.
There is more in the human imagination, potentially
than there is in the whole physical universe
because the imagination contains the whole physical universe
and a lot of things from universes
that we have never seen and will never see.
So, despite the importance of imagination
it is probably also worth remembering
that unless that is imagination
that is having the will applied to it
imagination is a treacherous, sucking bog
that you can waste your entire life in
thinking about how great it's going to be
when you write your novel
when you win the lottery
when you hook up with the object of your affections.
And none of these things need ever happen
because you will be too busy
enjoying the dream of them happening
to ever take steps to bring them about
in the real, physical world.
That is when imagination is dangerous.
It's like quicksand.
And it can neutralise your entire life if you let it.
This is why it is immensely important to train the will
upon the imagination.
Then, you will be able to bring your idle dreams and fancies
down into a material form.
So, imagination
it is the most priceless gold
that you could ever possibly mine
but don't get caught in a cave-in at the pit.